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The visitor at La Chine rapids, near Montreal, might have seen a squadron of Northwestern trading canoes leaving for the Grand Portage, at the west of Lake Superior. The boatmen, or "engagés," having spent their season's gains in carousal, packed their blanket capotes and were ready for the wilderness again.

All night long, while the rifles sputtered, the villagers in their capotes men, women, and children huddled around the fires. The young men of the militia begged Clark to allow them to fight, and to keep them well affected he sent some here and there amongst our lines. For our Colonel's strength was not counted by rifles or men alone: he fought with his brain.

Everywhere was gay sound the fiddle, the laugh, the song; everywhere was gay color the red sashes of the voyageurs, the beaded moccasins and leggings of the mètis, the capotes of the brigade, the variegated costumes of the Crees and Ojibways. Like the wild roses around the edge of the muskegs, this brief flowering of the year passed.

The general style of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain so for the next ten thousand years, but each island shapes its capotes just enough differently from the others to enable an observer to tell at a glance what particular island a lady hails from. It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis.

Nobody of that region, except the infirm, stayed indoors to shiver by a fire. Eagle and the girls in their warm capotes breasted with me the coldest winter days. She was as happy as they were; her cheeks tingled as pink as theirs. Sometimes I thought her eyes must answer me with her old self-command; their bright grayness was so natural.

And this wildness of disposition was not a little fostered by the nature of their usual occupations. They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them', by scarlet or crimson worsted belts.

And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, and especially to the fashions of the various people we visited. When we left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth combs successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we were topped with fezzes of the bloodiest hue, hung with tassels like an Indian's scalp-lock.

They swathed their feet in duffel, covering them with high moccasins, and encased their legs in several wrappings of duffel leggins. Their caps were of fur, the hair of which reached down over their foreheads, ears, and necks, giving them protection. Over all they flung capotes, which extended to their knees and were caught in at the waist with a scarlet sash.

At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and making the air sweet and cool. We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish ship-timber.

Glad to see you all, boys. Sit down," said Mr Ravenshaw, shaking hands all round. The youths who were thus heartily welcomed presented a fine manly appearance. They were clad in the capotes, leggings, fur caps, moccasins, and fingerless mittens usually worn by the men of the settlement in winter.