These mats are seldom more than five or six feet in length, as a greater size would be inconvenient in adjusting and preparing the lodges.
It is a species of labor usually assigned to the elder women of the family.

When they become broken down and worn out with exposure and hardship, so that they cannot cut down trees, hoe corn, or carry heavy burdens, they are set to weaving mats, taking care of the children, and disciplining the dogs, with which every Indian lodge abounds.
Lac de Boeuf, or Buffalo Lake, into which our course next brought us, is a lovely sheet of water.

In some places its banks are exceedingly picturesque, with beautiful headlands jutting out into the clear depths, where they, and the magnificent groups of trees which crown them, lie reflected as in a mirror.

Now and then we would catch a glimpse of deer darting across the glades which at intervals opened through the woodlands, or a pair of sand-hill cranes would rise, slowly flapping their wings, and seek a place of more undisturbed repose.

The flocks of teal now skimming the surface of the water, now rising higher towards the shelter of the forests, tempted our sportsman sorely; but, as there was little prospect of finding his game when it was brought down, he did not give way to the wanton pleasure of shooting merely to destroy life.
In quitting this charming lake, and again entering the narrow, tortuous course of the river, we bade adieu to everything like scenery, until we should reach our journey's end.
We had now seventy miles to pass through a country perfectly monotonous and uninteresting, the distastefulness of which was aggravated by the knowledge that we could, had we been provided with horses or a carriage of any kind, have crossed over to the Portage from Gleason's, through a pleasant country, in little more than three hours.