OF THE POLAR SEA. 



409 



. September 14.— This morning the officers being assembled round 

 a small fire, Perrault presented each of us with a small piece of meat 

 which he had saved from his allowance. It was received with great 

 thankfulness, and such an act of self-denial and kindness, being 

 totally unexpected in a Canadian voyager, filled our eyes with tears. 

 In directing our course to a river issuing from the lake, we met 

 Credit, who communicated the joyful intelligence of his having 

 killed two deer in the morning. We instantly halted, and having 

 shared the deer that was n eares t to us, prepared breakfast. After 

 which, the other deer was sent for, and we went down to the river, 

 which was about three hundred yards wide, and flowed with 

 great velocity through a broken rocky channel. Having searched 

 for a part where the current was most smooth, the canoe was 

 placed in the water at the head of a rapid, and St. Germain, Solomon 

 Belanger, and I, embarked in order to cross. We went from the 

 shore very well, but in mid -channel the canoe became difficult to 



j under our burden as the breeze was fresh. The current 

 drove us to the edge of the rapid, when Belanger unfortunately 

 applied his paddle to avert the apparent danger of being forced 

 down it, and lost his balance. The canoe was overset in con- 

 sequence in the middle of the rapid. We fortunately kept hold of 

 it, until we touched a rock where the water did not reach higher 

 than our waists; here we kept our footing, notwithstanding the 

 strength of the current, until the water was emptied out of the 

 canoe. Belanger then held the canoe steady whilst St. Germain 



1 



placed me in it, and afterwards embarked himself in a very dex- 

 terous manner. It was impossible, however, to embark Belanger, 

 as the canoe would have been hurried down the rapid, the moment 

 he should have raised his foot from the rock on which he stood. 

 We were, therefore, compelled to leave him in his perilous situation. 

 We had not gone twenty yards before the canoe, striking on a 

 sunken rock, went down. The place being shallow, we were again 



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