436 INUNDATION OF THE COUNTRY. 



a portage we reached the Rock Rapid, of which 

 we had intended to try the eastern side; but per- 

 ceiving that it was certainly the less eligible of 

 the two, we followed the old passage, and by 2 

 p.m. were safely in Lake Macdougall. From the 

 summit of a rock, I saw, with surprise, that the 

 whole country was inundated ; that which in 

 July had been dry and green being now con- 

 verted into a wide swamp. 



It was not without difficulty and anxiety that 

 we ascended the long and dangerous line of 

 rapids leading to Lake Garry, whose smooth and 

 glassy surface presented a striking contrast to its 

 wintry covering of five weeks ago. A sand-hill 

 that had served the same purpose before was 

 again selected for our encampment, and a more 

 certain evidence of the torrents of rain that must 

 have fallen could not have been afforded, than 

 by the spectacle of whole fields of unbroken 

 moss, which had been swept away in a body from 

 the face of the summit (a height of sixty feet), 

 and was strewed like a carpet along the beach. 



August 31st. — Having made the traverse to 

 that part where the ice had first detained us, we 

 were rather astonished at seeing a number of 

 marks on a point which none of us recollected to 

 have observed when passing it before : accord- 

 ingly, they were examined : and, from their ap- 

 parent freshness, and the newly gathered moss 



