194 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. xu. 



till nightfall and making a large fire. The brutes will 

 come within shot, and when one is wounded the rest fall 

 on him, so that their appetites are soon satisfied, and they 

 slink away and leave the hunters at rest. 



On the following morning, the 28th, we entered Lake 

 Nipisis ; but the wind raised such a swell that we were 

 compelled to make for an island and seek shelter under 

 its lea. The breeze rose to a gale, and the gale to a 

 storm, and we found ourselves windbound and prisoners 

 on a rugged rock a few acres in extent. Although the 

 last week in June, ice several feet thick remained in 

 fissures. 



The ferns were only unfolding their first fronds, and 

 water-lilies just beginning to appear above the mud in the 

 secluded bogs of the lake, but no leaves had yet reached 

 the surface of the water. Boulders or erratics were very 

 numerous on the hills which surrounded us, many being 

 perched on the crests of precipices, and several apparently 

 ready to roll off with the slightest touch. I employed the 

 time during which we were windbound on the island in 

 obtaining information from Pierre, the Abenakis, who had 

 spent the winter of 1859 on the Manicouagan Eiver. He 

 drew me a map of the route and of the portages with that 

 minuteness of detail which is so distinguishing a feature of 

 the Indian race generally, but particularly of those who 

 inhabit this country. The Manicouagan Eiver enters the 

 St. Lawrence nearly under the 49th parallel, and takes a 

 course about NNE. for 250 or 300 miles. It took Pierre 

 six weeks to reach Manicouagan Lake, travelling with 

 his winter supply of provisions ; but in a light canoe two 

 men have been known to reach the lake in fifteen days 



