ing up in the service during a period of from six to ten years. The fur and whale trade, he thought, could be most advantageously united. ance of making the Columbia by juniors successively growthe southern base and avenue to the Pacific, as its course is navigable, its banks level, and its basin "the most northern situation fit for colonisation and suitable for the residence of a civilised people." By opening this intercourse from Atlantic to Pacific, forming regular establishments through the interior and at both coasts the adjacent islands, and partly directly and partly indirectly through the channel of the possessions and factories of the East India Company, all in British territory, and the South Sea Company, he hoped to command the fur trade of North America "from latitude 48 degrees north to the Pole, excepting that portion of it which the Russians have in the Pacific. To this may be added the fishing in both seas and the markets of the four quarters of the globe." His first plan was to accomplish this through a fusion of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North-west Company. He attached first importance to securing thereby the energetic men necessary for the undertaking, men who "by personal exertions no less hazardous than laborious and persevering have contributed to extensions to unknown parts. If they were not the only men who could undertake it," he thought, He recommended, if these companies refused to unite, that their rights be extinguished; that the exclusive privileges in the Pacific of the East India Company and the South Seas Company be treated in the same way. Mackenzie came back to Canada in 1802 to seek, as a preliminary, the union of the two companies. He was unsuccessful, and seeing no likelihood of bringing it about for some years, he entreated the Government itself to take action, as otherwise, before the union could be carried out, "the trade may be reduced if not ruined, and the opportunity of making the western establishment lost perhaps for ever." He urged the expediency from a national point of view" of securing the means of hereafter giving efficiency to the favourite project alluded to, or any other which the Government may think eligible to countenance, by forming an immediate military establishment on the west coast of North America, so as to prevent other nations anticipating us in this object, the importance of which cannot be foreseen in all its consequences." He proved too true a pro- phet. panies 1820. Mackenzie shortened his days in his passion to give wider boundaries to the trade and movement of the race. His last recorded letter, written to his cousin, gives a pleasing domestic picture of "Lady Mackenzie sitting by me, and the children playing on the floor." But it contains as well a fateful foreboding of his doom. 166 Sir Alexander Mackenzie: Explorer and Imperialist. [Feb. and Clark had come through the student and the statesman. to the coast; Astor's expedi- The Old Establishment where tion had anticipated Thomp- his voyages were planned, and son's voyage down the Columbia the New Establishment which to Astoria, and the post had was the base for his most passed into American posses- notable exploit, possess a hission. Britain failed to "begin toric interest which should ento be remunerated for the ex- sure the restoration of both. penses it has sustained in discovering and surveying the Pacific Ocean," as he had urged, and “the many political reasons which present themselves to the mind of any man acquainted with enlarged systems and capacities for British commerce failed to arouse the Colonial Office. Diplomacy again limped too far behind the vigorous strides of the explorer. can this be wondered at when the history of the European struggle at that time is considered. Pitt had gone; the weak-handed Addington was in office, and the whole power of the nation was marshalled in a life-and-death struggle with the first Napoleon. British statesmanship had too many vital problems on its hands at home, and British military and naval power too many avenues for its exercise on the Continent and in the narrow seas, to make Mackenzie's proposal one likely of acceptance. Nor Fortunately for Mackenzie's fame, the archives of two Governments contain the written evidence that to the courage and endurance of the explorer, he added the long vision and the comprehensive outlook of "I have at last been overtaken by the consequences of my sufferings in the Northwest. I think it is of the same nature as Mr Macgillvray's complaint, but it has not yet arrived at a severe crisis. I have in obedience to orders become a water drinker and milk sop. I have not tasted wine, spirituous or malt liquors for several months, and I think this has been of service to me. "The symptoms of the disorder are very disagreeable and most uncomfortable. The exercise of walking, particularly uphill, brings on a stupor, headache, or dead pain, which at once pervades the whole frame, attended with listlessness and apathy which I cannot well describe." The following spring, while still in middle life, he died. NENETTE AND RINTINTIN. BY KENNETH MACNICHOL. are a happy couple. She orders his life benevolently as though he were an infant of three sponsibility, he endures her tirades with exceeding placidity, doddering about among his roses, pipe in mouth, mazed in such peace of mind as he has never known before. The constant contemplation of this besotted happiness becomes inescapably monotonous. Therefore I was driven to look elsewhere for an interest to assuage the tedium of those ten protracted days. WITHOUT doubt, said René Guizet, even you, my friends, have grown to think of me as a cynic, whose unprofitable years. So, relieved of all relife is spent in futile comment on the foibles of humanity. This I deny without indignation. One has wisdom enough to see that life mixes honey with the bitter wine. Those whose hands are scratched in plucking roses may readily learn thereby that the offending bush bears flowers of great beauty in due season. To prove to you that I look on life with no malefic eye, here is a tale of moving sentiment for you. Apart from unimportant personal observations, one could adapt it easily to adorn the pages of any weekly of the people at two sous. The little journalist of 'Le Grand Bavard' paused for a moment, while that one in attendance at the third table on the right in the Café Provençal brought the usual libation of foaming bock. As you know, René Guizet continued, thus refreshed, since three days I have again returned from my native Provence, where I visited Papa and Madame Hilaire. It is not of them, however, that I speak. My dear uncle of the monstrous nose and his good wife, formerly the Widow Gibaud and his near neighbour, Where to look? Messieurs, your imagination cannot picture such a place as the little farm of Papa Hilaire. There time stands still. The translation of a calf into veal becomes an event of communal importance. Births, deaths, and weddings, few and far apart, are all the history of the locality. One goes to bed before nine o'clock, with the painful result that thwarted nature compels awakening long before the sun has cleansed the night air of unhealthy chill and dampness. St Pierre de la Croix, the nearest village, has five houses, a forge, and a café, where the somnolent locataire sells grey wine unsurpassed for lack of merit. One does not willingly visit that place twice. No; the bucolic life of Papa Hilaire, much as it pleases him, would soon little given to useless conversaresult in death from weariness of doing nothing for one whose thoughts turn inevitably towards the lighted boulevards of Paris. In alleviation of all this one might seek relief, as the only possible alternative, in the society of Jacques Barbosse. He is a young peasant, this Jacques Barbosse, who is neighbour to Papa Hilaire, stupid as are all peasants, except that his stupidity is more pronounced. He is stupid, mon Dieu, as one of his own cows whom he resembles, having much of that beast's foolish complacency. You will understand me when I say that he looks like a cow: a huge body, protuberant bones, blonde and red, wide blue eyes containing as much expression as a pair of buttons set in a wooden face. Peace surrounds him as with an aura of eternal brooding. He speaks slowly after chewing well the cud of his reflections, a mannerism peculiarly exasperating to a man like myself. You will see at once that Jacques Barbosse is not a Provençal. His mother, rest her soul, was a woman of Alsace, whom the father met while doing military service. He died, so goes the gossip of the village, worn out in a vain attempt to shatter his wife's vast impenetrable calm. Jacques Barbosse has been more fortunate. He married a girl of St Pierre de la Croix, Delphine Pardou, as little intellectual as himself and as tion. Our Provençal women sometimes possess that habit of sedate reticence, since they have so little opportunity to become loquacious because of the extreme love of self-expression characteristic of their men. That marriage could not have been more happily arranged. After six years those two still look at each other with all of love's benignity alight in their eyes, undemonstrative, and perfectly content. There are two beautiful children, twins who have five years, little blonde Nenette and the brown little hero of the farmyard, Rintintin, much more aggressive than his sister, whom he protects from angry cocks and a morose old gander with amazing chivalry. Petite Nenette! Le petit Rintintin! awaken ten thousand recollections? Curious names, mes amis, certainly, to hear spoken in a Provençal farmyard! Do those names not Think, ten years since! Poupées! Hero and heroine who redeemed our France! Beloved fetish of our poilus throughout the war! Yes, mes amis; only two little dolls, two effigies, no more than a twist of yarn folded over and tied to make a waist, wrapped about once again to form the head, with three little stitches for the eyes and mouth. They were always together, as you will remember-la petite Nenette et le petit Rintintin. They were more firmly attached than by any bond of marriage, for of the threads that formed one was the other also made. How own fetish to the front with many of our brave soldiers did this hero and heroine save from death or fearful injury! Those who wore the fetish near to the heart might go forward calmly, supremely confident that neither fire nor steel had power over them. More potent than the commander of the armies, little Nenette and Rintintin hurled the enemy back across the border, for no other personage, however great, could instil the same reckless courage in both peasant and aristocrat. All this seems strange now, mes amis, is it not so? It is said that Nenette and Rintintin the First were conceived in the mind of an unknown midinette, and were born between the curves of her clever fingers to be given to her lover before he went away. If the tale is true, that little daughter of the people deserved the cross with palms more assuredly than the greatest of our generals. Now even her name is forgotten, if it were ever known. But there is no doubt that those little puppets had power to make brave men of cowards, and heroes of those who needed no such support. The secret? It was ordained that Nenette and Rintintin should be made with love sewn into every stitch-thence came their virtue. Otherwise they were no more than a wisp of yarn crumpled and twisted resting in a forgotten pocket of a soldier's blouse. This, one believes, is probably the reason why, although I carried my 66 "Au contraire, monsieur," she answered politely. The names my children have are their very own." "But, then," I wondered, there will be a reason." "Sans doute," she smiled. "They are not saint's names, certainly." From her one could obtain no more information. Consider this, however; the first time that I had a glass of wine with Jacques Barbosse, there, in the little two-roomed cottage, resting on a ledge over the great stone fireplace, I saw the godfather and godmother to the children : Nenette and Rintintin made in stained wool, green and red, worn and rumpled, protected from the onslaughts of old age by a little dome of glass on a a wooden base. I called the attention of Jacques Barbosse to the souvenir. |