122 ASCENT OF ANOTHER SMALL RTVER. 



northerly brought us to a river, barred by fifteen 

 rapids, varying in height from three to ten feet. 

 In any other situation, such a succession of inter- 

 ruptions would have seriously annoyed me ; but I 

 now regarded them with complacency, as the 

 ladder by which I was to mount to the dividing 

 ridge of land, — the attainment of that goal 

 being all which at that late season I could hope 

 to accomplish. 



I had in De Charloit, the bowman, one of the 

 most expert men in the country, and in no place 

 had his astonishing strength and activity been 

 called more into play than on this occasion. In 

 the midst of dangers the most imminent from 

 rapids or falls, he was cool, fearless, and col- 

 lected ; and often, when the pole or paddle was 

 no longer available, he would spring into the 

 curling water, and, with a foot firmly planted, 

 maintain his position, where others would have 

 been swept away in an instant. But in spite of all 

 his care and exertion, our frail vessel was sorely buf- 

 feted, and the bark hung in shreds along its sides, 

 ripped and broken in every quarter. We were, 

 therefore, not a little glad, when, after a difficult 

 portage, we found another free and open water. 



While the necessary patching and gumming 

 of the canoe was going on, to render her tight, 

 I climbed to the top of a short range of rocks 

 about two hundred feet high, and dipping to the 



