CANADIAN GUIDES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13808, 20 January 1909, Page 3

CANADIAN GUIDES.

Owing to some hereditary instinct which may have drifted down from thedays when Great .Britain was inhabited by savages living by the chase, or which perchance came with a Scotch strain in the blood, in early lite I manifested a fondness for going into the wilderness, and my wanderings have extended from Mexico nearly to Hudson's Bay, writes Dr. Horatio Wood, in Lippincott's. In this experience' I have met various guides whose personalities have been sufficiently picturesque to be worthy of note. Peter, a Canadian guide whom I have often employed, is remarkable for his scanty English, which he has picked up about the wharves of Quebec. The Euglish "h" is his in all its additions and elisions, while his only adverb of intensification is "like, 'ell," a woman is "purty" or "ugly" "like 'ell," winter is "cold like,'"ell," summer is "'ot like 'ell." The French Canadian canoemen are remarkable for their musical aptitude. Once, when returning to camp from the far side of the lake, in the late gloaming, I heard them singing an old Canadian boat song, the music of which is not in print. The blended voices grew louder and louder as the boat drew nearer, rising and falling in the half barbaric tune, wonderfully sweet in its mingling of the music of the late medieval France with the voices of the forest of the north.. Of the score or more of mountain guides I have employed in the last thirty years, the best hunter and tracker was Nels.'a Dane. The only guide I ever knew equal to Nels in his sense of locality was July Jesus, a Seminole Indian scout, who was with us one August in a United States exploring expedition through the Mexico-American desert in the extreme south of middle Texas. I have called him an Indian because he was officially, but in fact tlio Seminoles have so intermarried with .their .negro slaves that July Jesus looked and talked like a full-blooded negro. ' For some reason our commandant felt impelled to leave the open valley and .climb the steep Chesos (Jesus) mountain. At 12 o'clock p.m. we found that in sdme manner the plugs of our water casks had been drawn, so that we had just enough water left to make a cup of coffee in the morning. We could not reach the Rio Grande south of us because of impassable precipices. Finally it was decided to let July Jesus decide on the direction in which we should proceed, although he had never been in the country before. July struck due north, directly away from the river. Wo had a fearful .march, in the heat; the country was so rough that we had to walk and drag our horses after us; but after eight hours we came to the rircr. where it'enters the Grand Canyon of the Rio Grande. As soon as we had satisfied ourselves with fried bacon and hardtack, 1 sent for July Jesus and asked how he knew which way to go to get to the Rio Grande. The only answer was, "Lawd, doctali, I had to go to do ribber! I;had no watah. I had to go to de ribber!"