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DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, $s.

DE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twelfth day of October, in the thirty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, ISAAC RILEY, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, "between the Years 1760 and 1776. In two parts. By ALEXAN"DER HENRY, Esq."

IN CONFORMITY to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the "copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprie66 tors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and to an act, entitled, "An act, supplementary to an act, entitled, an "act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of 66 maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such "copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the "benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching his"torical and other prints."

CHARLES CLINTON,

Clerk of the District of New-York.

PREFACE.

A PREMATURE attempt to share in the fur-trade of Canada, directly on the conquest of the country, led the author of the following pages into situations of some danger and singularity; and the pursuit, under better auspices, of the same branch of commerce, occasioned him to visit various parts of the Indian Territories.

These transactions occupied a period of sixteen years, commencing nearly with the author's setting out in life. The details, from time to time committed to paper, form the subject matter of the present volume.

The heads, under which, for the most part, they will be found to range themselves are three: first, the incidents or adventures in which the author was engaged; secondly, the observations, on the geography and natural history of the countries visited, which he was able to make, andto preserve;

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and, thirdly, the views of society and manners, among a part of the Indians of North America, which it has belonged to the course of his narrative to develope.

Upon the last, the author may be permitted to remark, that he has by no means undertaken to write the general history of the American Indians, nor any theory of their morals, or their merits. With but few exceptions, it has been the entire scope of his design, simply to relate those particular facts, which are either identified with his own fortunes, or with the truth of which he is otherwise personally conversant. All comment, therefore, in almost all instances, is studiously avoided.

Montreal, October 20th, 1809.