60 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
arm. of the lake, arrived at Hill Gates by sunset ; 
having come this day eleven miles. 
October 1.—Hill Gates is the name imposed on 
a romantic defile, whose rocky walls, rising per- 
pendicularly to the height of sixty or eighty feet, 
hem in the stream for three quarters of a mile, in 
many places so narrowly, that there is a want of 
room to ply the oars. In passing through this 
chasm we were naturally led to contemplate the 
mighty but, probably, slow and gradual effects of 
the water in wearing down such vast masses of 
rock ; but in the midst of our speculations, the at- 
tention was excited anew to a grand and pic- 
turesque rapid, which, surrounded by the most 
wild and majestic scenery, terminated the defile. 
The brown fishing-eagle had built its nest on one 
of the projecting cliffs. In the course of the day 
we surmounted this and another dangerous 
portage, called, the Upper and Lower Hill 
Gate Portages, crossed a small sheet of water, 
termed the White Fall. Lake, and entering the 
river of the same name, arrived at the White Fall 
about an hour after sunset, having come fourteen 
miles on a S.W. course. 
The whole of the 2d of October was spent in 
calrying the cargoes over a portage of thirteen 
hundred. yards in length, and in launching the 
empty boats over three several ridges of. rock 
