BACK ON THE GREAT FISH RIVER 161 



For five hundred and thirty geographical miles the 

 river was found to run through an iron-ribbed country 

 without a single tree on the whole line of its banks, 

 expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons, 

 most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into 

 falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of no less 

 than eighty-three, pouring its waters into the Polar 

 Sea in latitude 67 11' and longitude 94 30'; so that 

 his explorations on the northern coast were confined to 

 a section further east than Point Turnagain. 



The expedition met with its greatest danger at 

 Escape Rapid, between Lake Macdougall and Lake 

 Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream was 

 broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The 

 boat was lightened, and every care taken to avoid 

 accident ; but so overwhelming was the rush and whirl 

 of the water, that she, and consequently those in her, 

 were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into 

 one of the gulfs formed in the rocks and hollows. It 

 was in one of these places, which are fall, rapid, and 

 eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its safety 

 to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's 

 directions. 



The power of the water so far exceeded whatever 

 had been witnessed on any of the other rivers that the 

 precautions used elsewhere were weak and unavailing. 

 McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall 

 and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to 

 whom he spoke misunderstood him, and did exactly the 

 reverse ; and then, seeing the danger, the steersman 

 swept the stern round ; instantly the boat was caught 

 by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled 



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