A SOIREE AT FORT RELIANCE.

On the evening of the 17th March 1859, Captain Craventy gave a fete at Fort

Reliance. Our readers must not at once imagine a grand entertainment, such as a

court ball, or a musical soiree with a fine orchestra. Captain Craventy's

reception was a very simple affair, yet he had spared no pains to give it

eclat.

In fact, under the auspices of Corporal Joliffe, the large room on the

ground-floor was completely transformed. The rough walls, constructed of

roughly-hewn trunks of trees piled up horizontally, were still visible, it is

true, but their nakedness was disguised by arms and armour, borrowed from the

arsenal of the fort, and by an English tent at each corner of the room. Two

lamps suspended by chains, like chandeliers, and provided with tin reflectors,

relieved the gloomy appearance of the blackened beams of the ceiling, and

sufficiently illuminated the misty atmosphere of the room. The narrow windows,

some of them mere loop-holes, were so encrusted with hoar-frost, that it was

impossible to look through them; but two or three pieces of red bunting, tastily

arranged about them, challenged the admiration of all who entered. The floor, of

rough joists of wood laid parallel with each other, had been carefully swept by

Corporal Joliffe. No sofas, chairs, or other modern furniture, impeded the free

circulation of the guests. Wooden benches half fixed against the walls, huge

blocks of wood cut with the axe, and two tables with clumsy legs, were all the

appliances of luxury the saloon could boast of. But the partition wall, with a

narrow door leading into the next room, was decorated in a style alike costly

and picturesque. From the beams hung magnificent furs admirably arranged, the

equal of which could not be seen in the more favoured regions of Regent Street

or the Perspective-Newski. It seemed as if the whole fauna of the ice-bound

North were here represented by their finest skins. The eye wandered from the

furs of wolves, grey bears, polar bears, otters, wolverenes, beavers, muskrats,

water pole-cats, ermines, and silver foxes; and above this display was an

inscription in brilliantly-coloured and artistically shaped cardboard-the motto

of the world-famous Hudson's Bay Company-

"PROPELLE CUTUM."

"Really, Corporal Joliffe, you have surpassed yourself !" said Captain

Craventy to his subordinate.

"I think I have, I think I have !" replied the Corporal; "but honour to whom

honour is due, Mrs Joliffe deserves part of your commendation; she assisted me

in everything."

"A wonderful woman, Corporal."

"Her equal is not to be found, Captain."

An immense brick and earthenware stove occupied the centre of the room, with

a huge iron pipe passing from it through the ceiling, and conducting the dense

black smoke into the outer air. This stove contained a roaring fire constantly

fed with fresh shovelfuls of coal by the stoker, an old soldier specially

appointed to the service. Now and then a gust of wind drove back a volume of

smoke into the room, dimming the brightness of the lamps, and adding fresh

blackness to the beams of the ceiling, whilst tongues of flame shot forth from

the stove. But the guests of Fort Reliance thought little of this slight

inconvenience; the stove warmed them, and they could not pay too dearly for its

cheering heat, so terribly cold was it outside in the cutting north wind.

The storm could be heard raging without, the snow fell fast, becoming rapidly

solid and coating the already frosted window panes with fresh ice. The whistling

wind made its way through the cranks and chinks of the doors and windows, and

occasionally the rattling noise drowned every other sound. Presently an awful

silence ensued. Nature seemed to be taking breath; but suddenly the squall

recommenced with terrific fury. The house was shaken to its foundations, the

planks cracked, the beams groaned. A stranger less accustomed than the

habitues of the fort to the war of the elements, would have asked if the

end of the world were come.

But, with two exceptions, Captain Craventy's guests troubled themselves

little about the weather, and if they had been outside they would have felt no

more fear than the stormy petrels disporting themselves in the midst of the

tempest. Two only of the assembled company did not belong to the ordinary

society of the neighbourhood, two women, whom we shall introduce when we have

enumerated Captain Craventy's other guests: these were, Lieutenant Jaspar

Hobson, Sergeant Long, Corporal Joliffe, and his bright active Canadian wife, a

certain Mac-Nab and his wife, both Scotch, John Rae, married to an Indian woman

of the country, and some sixty soldiers or employes of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The neighbouring forts also furnished their contingent of guests, for in these

remote lands people look upon each other as neighbours although their homes may

be a hundred miles apart. A good many employes or traders came from Fort

Providence or Fort Resolution, of the Great Slave Lake district, and even from

Fort Chippeway and Fort Liard further south. A rare break like this in the

monotony of their secluded lives, in these hyberborean regions, was joyfully

welcomed by all the exiles, and even a few Indian chiefs, about a dozen, had

accepted Captain Craventy's invitation. They were not, however, accompanied by

their wives, the luckless squaws being still looked upon as little better than

slaves. The presence of these natives is accounted for by the fact that they are

in constant intercourse with the traders, and supply the greater number of furs

which pass through the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, in exchange for other

commodities. They are mostly Chippeway Indians, well grown men with hardy

constitutions. Their complexions are of the peculiar reddish black colour always

ascribed in Europe to the evil spirits of fairyland. They wear very picturesque

cloaks of skins and mantles of fur, with a head-dress of eagle's feathers spread

out like a lady's fan, and quivering with every motion of their thick black

hair.

Such was the company to whom the Captain was doing the honours of Fort

Reliance. There was no dancing for want of music, but the "buffet" admirably

supplied the want of the hired musicians of the European balls. On the table

rose a pyramidal pudding made by Mrs Joliffe's own hands; it was an immense

truncated cone, composed of flour, fat, rein-deer venison, and musk beef. The

eggs, milk, and citron prescribed in recipe books were, it is true, wanting, but

their absence was atoned for by its huge proportions. Mrs Joliffe served out

slice after slice with liberal hands, yet there remained enough and to spare.

Piles of sandwiches also figured on the table, in which ship biscuits took the

place of thin slices of English bread and butter, and dainty morsels of corned

beef that of the ham and stuffed veal of the old world. The sharp teeth of the

Chippeway Indians made short work of the tough biscuits; and for drink there was

plenty of whisky and gin handed round in little pewter pots, not to speak of a

great bowl of punch which was to close the entertainment, and of which the

Indians talked long afterwards in their wigwams.

Endless were the compliments paid to the Joliffes that evening, but they

deserved them; how zealously they waited on the guests, with what easy grace

they distributed the refreshments! They did not need prompting, they anticipated

the wishes of each one. The sandwiches were succeeded by slices of the

inexhaustible pudding, the pudding by glasses of gin or whisky.

"No, thank you, Mr Joliffe."

"You are too good, Corporal; but let me have time to breathe."

"Mrs Joliffe, I assure you, I can eat no more."

"Corporal Joliffe, I am at your mercy."

"No more, Mrs Joliffe, no more, thank you!"

Such were the replies met with on every side by the zealous pair, but their

powers of persuasion were such that the most reluctant yielded in the end. The

quantities of food and drink consumed were really enormous. The hubbub of

conversation increased. The soldiery and employes became excited. Here the talk

was of hunting, there of trade. What plans were laid for next season! The entire

fauna of the Arctic regions would scarcely supply game enough for these

enterprising hunters. They already saw bears, foxes, and musk oxen, falling

beneath their bullets, and pole-cats by hundreds caught in their traps. Their

imagination pictured the costly furs piled up in the magazines of the Company,

which was this year to realise hitherto unheard of profits. And whilst the

spirits thus freely circulated inflamed the imagination of the Europeans, the

large doses of Captain Craventy's "fire-water" imbibed by the Indians had an

opposite effect. Too proud to show admiration, too cautious to make promises,

the taciturn chiefs listened gravely and silently to the babel of voices around

them.

The captain enjoying the hurly burly, and pleased to see the poor people,

brought back as it were to the civilised world, enjoying themselves so

thoroughly, was here, there, and everywhere, answering all inquiries about the

fete with the words

"Ask Joliffe, ask Joliffe !"

And they asked Joliffe, who had a gracious word for every body.

Some of those employed in the garrison and civil service of Fort Reliance

must here receive a few words of special notice, for they were presently to go

through experiences of a most terrible nature, which no human perspicacity could

possibly have foreseen. Amongst others we must name Lieutenant Jaspar Hobson,

Sergeant Long, Corporal and Mrs Joliffe, and the two foreign women already

alluded to, in whose honour Captain Craventy's fete was given.

Jaspar Hobson was a man of forty years of age. He was short and slight, with

little muscular power; but a force of will which carried him successfully

through all trials, and enabled him to rise superior to adverse circumstances.

He was " a child of the Company." His father, Major Hobson, an Irishman from

Dublin, who had now been dead for some time, lived for many years at Fort

Assiniboin with his wife. There Jaspar Hobson was born. His childhood and youth

were spent at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. His father brought him up

strictly, and he became a man in self-control and courage whilst yet a boy in

years. Jaspar Hobson was no mere hunter, but a soldier, a brave and intelligent

officer. During the struggles in Oregon of the Hudson's Bay Company with the

rival companies of the Union, he distinguished himself by his zeal and

intrepidity, and rapidly rose to the rank of lieutenant. His well-known merit

led to his appointment to the command of an expedition to the north, the aim of

which was to explore the northern shores of the Great Bear Lake, and to found a

fort on the confines of the American continent. Jaspar Hobson was to set out on

his journey early in April.

If the lieutenant was the type of a good officer, Sergeant Long was that of a

good soldier. He was a man of fifty years of age, with a rough beard that looked

as if it were made of cocoa-nut fibre. Constitutionally brave, and disposed to

obey rather than to command. He had no ambition but to obey the orders he

received never questioning them, however strange they might appear, never

reasoning for himself when on duty for the Company-a true machine in uniform;

but a perfect machine, never wearing out; ever on the march, yet never showing

signs of fatigue. Perhaps Sergeant Long was rather hard upon his men, as he was

upon himself. He would not tolerate the slightest infraction of discipline, and

mercilessly ordered men into confinement for the slightest neglect, whilst he

himself had never been reprimanded. In a word, he was a man born to obey, and

this self-annihilation suited his passive temperament. Men such as he are the

materials of which a formidable army is formed. They are the arms of the

service, obeying a single head. Is not this the only really powerful

organisation? The two types of fabulous mythology, Briareus with a hundred arms

and Hydra with a hundred heads, well represent the two kinds of armies; and in a

conflict between them, which would be victorious? Briareus without a doubt !

We have already made acquaintance with Corporal Joliffe. He was the busy bee

of the party, but it was pleasant to hear him humming. He would have made a

better major-domo than a soldier; and he was himself aware of this. So he called

himself the " Corporal in charge of details," but he would have lost himself a

hundred times amongst these details, had not little Mrs Joliffe guided him with

a firm hand. So it came to pass, that Corporal Joliffe obeyed his wife without

owning it, doubtless thinking to himself, like the philosopher Sancho, "a

woman's advice is no such great thing, but he must be a fool who does not listen

to it."

It is now time to say a few words of the two foreign women already alluded to

more than once. They were both about forty years old, and one of them well

deserved to take first rank amongst celebrated female travellers. The name of

Paulina Barnett, the rival of the Pfeiffers, Tinnis, and Haimaires of Hull, has

been several times honourably mentioned at the meetings of the Royal

Geographical Society. In her journeys up the Brahmaputra, as far as the

mountains of Thibet, across an unknown corner of New Holland, from Swan Bay to

the Gulf of Carpentaria, Paulina Barnett had given proof of the qualities of a

great traveller. She had been a widow for fifteen years, and her passion for

travelling led her constantly to explore new lands. She was tall, and her face,

framed in long braids of hair, already touched with white, was full of energy.

She was near-sighted, and a double eye-glass rested upon her long straight nose,

with its mobile nostrils. We must confess that her walk was somewhat masculine,

and her whole appearance was suggestive of moral power, rather than of female

grace. She was an Englishwoman from Yorkshire, possessed of some fortune, the

greater part of which was expended in adventurous expeditions, and some new

scheme of exploration had now brought her to Fort Reliance. Having crossed the

equinoctial regions, she was doubtless anxious to penetrate to the extreme

limits of the hyperborean. Her presence at the fort was an event. The governor

of the Company had given her a special letter of recommendation to Captain

Craventy, according to which the latter was to do all in his power to forward

the design of the celebrated traveller to reach the borders of the Arctic Ocean.

A grand enterprise! To follow in the steps of Hearne, Mackenzie, Rae, Franklin,

and others. What fatigues, what trials, what dangers would have to be gone

through in the conflict with the terrible elements of the Polar climate! How

could a woman dare to venture where so many explorers have drawn back or

perished? But the stranger now shut up in Fort Reliance was no ordinary woman;

she was Paulina Barnett, a laureate of the Royal Society.

We must add that the celebrated traveller was accompanied by a servant named

Madge. This faithful creature was not merely a servant, but a devoted and

courageous friend, who lived only for her mistress. A Scotchwoman of the old

type, whom a Caleb might have married without loss of dignity. Madge was about

five years older than Mrs Barnett, and was tall and strongly built. The two were

on the most intimate terms; Paulina looked upon Madge as an elder sister, and

Madge treated Paulina as her daughter.

It was in honour of Paulina Barnett that Captain Craventy was this evening

treating his employes and the Chippeway Indians. In fact, the lady traveller was

to join the expedition of Jaspar Hobson for the exploration of the north. It was

for Paulina Barnett that the large saloon of the factory resounded with joyful

hurrahs. And it was no wonder that the stove consumed a hundredweight of coal on

this memorable evening, for the cold outside was twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit

below zero, and Fort Reliance is situated in 61? 47' N. Lat., at least four

degrees from the Polar circle.