APPENDIX — THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 157 



the interruption came about in this way. After we had gone about 

 four and a half miles we came to the " Narrows," a gorge with walls 

 of nearly precipitous rock and dangerous water. Most of the baggage 

 was carried round, and the remainder was entrusted to the guides 

 who undertook to pole the dug-out through the rapids, with the result 

 that it became a total wreck, and our supplies went to the bottom or 

 floated down stream. Hurrying to the spot in our canoe we rescued 

 from the greedy waters ham, butter, pork, fishing tackle, etc. But 

 there were some things dear to our hearts that the angry waters would 

 not yield up, and these were baked beans and the aluminum outfit, 

 containing cooking utensils and dishes. 



Guides are a necessity. They are also an encumbrance if not of 

 the right kind. We decided to dispense with ours. The generous 

 sportsman at the fishing lodge below Grand Falls improvised for us a 

 cooking outfit. In the meantime our own had been recovered from 

 the depths of a pool. Left to our own resources we pictured the 

 delights of making our way unaided through the wilderness ahead of 

 us, taking our own time, and examining whatever we chose, — a free 

 life indeed, with a prospect of abundant ingenuity and exercise in 

 overcoming the obstacles that lay strewn in our pathway. 



About four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, August 13th, we 

 reached Indian Falls, fifty miles from Bathurst, having poled our own 

 canoe for three days without any mishap, covering in that time over 

 twenty miles of very bad water. But we rejoiced in the prospect of a 

 Sunday's rest in one of the wildest and most picturesque spots on the 

 river, and the opportunity to review the events of the past week, 

 estimate our resources of strength and provisions, and to form plans to 

 reach the second haven of rest — the Nipisiguit lakes, thirty miles 

 beyond Indian Falls. We had devoted ourselves almost exclusively 

 during the past three days to the task of getting our canoe up through 

 the rapids and over rocks that strewed our pathway "thick as autumn 

 leaves in Vallambrosa." The last two or three miles of our journey to 

 Indian Falls was the tug-of-war of the trip. Rocks and huge boulders 

 filled the river, and there seemed at times not passage way enough for 

 the canoe in the swirling waters as they eddied from rock to rock. 

 When the rapids were too strong and the rocks made the poling of 

 the canoe too dangerous, we towed it up by means of ropes. 



The hills on each side of the river became higher and gradually 

 drew nearer the banks as we ascended, occasionally forming over- 

 hanging precipices as on the Restigouche. Cool springs and gurgling 



