THE THE-LEW, OR TEH-LON. 131 



swimming across at the moment. The face of 

 the country was extremely barren and for- 

 bidding. When afterwards we encamped, not 

 a shrub could be found ; and the moss being 

 wet, it required some ingenuity to make a 

 fire : ultimately, however, it was effected, by 

 building two parallel walls, within which the 

 moss was placed, and fanned into flame by 

 the draft rushing between. This simple no- 

 tion was the means of saving us much trouble 

 afterwards. The pass led us to an immense 

 lake, from which land could be faintly dis- 

 tinguished to the north, while east and west 

 it was indented with deep inlets and bays. One 

 of these, to the right, presenting a clear horizon, 

 led, as Maufelly believed, to the The-lew. 



Subsequently, several Indians, who had been 

 there, informed me that, by making a portage 

 from the eastern extremity of a deep bay, they 

 got to a small lake, and from thence by another 

 portage to a larger one ; that this discharged it- 

 self by a river into the north-east end of a very 

 long but narrow lake, the southern termination of 

 which was about half way between that point 

 and Slave Lake. To the east, they said it was 

 connected, by a short line of rapids, with a lake 

 of singular shape, which, by means of a river 

 seventeen miles long, communicated with the 

 The-lew, at a mean distance from our position 



k 2 



