Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-17
DESERTED VILLAGE FOUND
BY RAILROAD ENGINEERS
ISOLATED FROM THE WORLD IN
CANADIAN wILps
Dwellings Showed Evidence Of Having
Been Recently oeoupied--Inciden
Of the Baby's Cradle-5edolothe
Made of Water Fowls Skins

Special to The Herald.
BACHINE, Can, Dec. 16.-The loca-
ting of the new transcontinental rail-
way has opened up vast stretches of
wild land territory hitherto unknown
to all but a few of the most adven-
turous Of explorers or sportsmen, and
the reports of the engineers, many of
whom are only now returning after a
year In the wilds, are of great interest.
Some of the most interesting of their
discoveries will never appear officially,
since they have no bearing upon the
object Of their expeditions, but the
story that follows was told to the
writer by trustworthy, reliable men,
who have lately returned from To-
cality 250 miles north of Ottawa, ex-
tending eighty or hundred miles due
east and west.
There is good deal of open, swampy
land there, alternating with stretches
of timber, sometimes large and valu-
able, but often stunted and worthless
varieties. Settlements, of course, they
could not expect to find and though
wild animals were fairly plentiful, it
did not appear that the Indian popula-
tion had ever been extensive.
Their surprise, therefore was great
when one clear summer afternoon they
discovered lying before them broad,
far-spreading expanse Of cleared land,
with houses scattered here and there
and fields Of grain, alternating with
patches of meadow land.
They were still more surprised. how
ever as they noticed the forsaken ap-
pearance of the nearest house and saw
the grass growing undisturbed right up
to the rough wooden steps. No one
answered their rapping at the door,
and when they gently pushed it open,
there was nothing within to show that
the rooms had been inhabited for
months.
At the next house the same state of
affairs existed, nor could any sign of
life be seen in the whole settlement.
The ak men at once reported to the
engineer in charge, who called off work
for the day, and with his whole party
went forward to investigate.
The houses themselves were not the
usual first settlers shanties, with lop
scoops for roofs, but regularly gabled
two-story dwellings,, with the walls
plastered with a very coarse lime NOR
tar. The investigators discovered two
saw pits containing quantities of saw
dust, showing where hand sawyers
had laboriously ripped tree trunks into
boards.
The cooking had been done on stone
hearths, opening into stone chimneys,
of very good construction. Probably
the heating in cold weather had been
done in the same manner, IT, indeed,
these dwellings, were intended to be in
habited in the winter. There were
only four or five stables in the settle
ment, and these were fitted up for
horses only.
The principal narrator of these
unique experiences said that what ap-
pealed to his feelings touchingly was
a baby's cradle with the clothes turned
down as though the mother had taken
up her baby a moment before In the
little pillow was the hollow where a
wee head had nestled, and one shoe,
about three inches long, still lay half
under the bed clothes, with button
missing from it's strap. The material
used in it's manufacture was rabbit