62 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
tempts to regain the bank were, for a time, 
ineffectual, owing to the rocks within my reach 
having been worn smooth by the action of the 
water ; but, after I had been carried a considerable 
distance down the stream, I caught hold of a 
willow, by which I held until two gentlemen of 
the Hudson’s Bay Company came in a boat to — 
my assistance. The only bad consequence of 
this accident was an injury sustained by a very 
valuable chronometer, (No. 1733,) belonging to 
Daniel Moore, Esq., of Lincoln’s Im. One of 
the gentlemen, to. whom I delivered it imme- 
diately on landing, in his agitation let it fall, 
whereby the minute-hand was broken, but the 
works were not in the smallest degree injured, 
and the loss of the hand was afterwards sup- 
plied | | 
During the night the frost was severe; and at 
sunrise, on the 3d, the thermometer stood at 25°. 
After leaving our encampment at the White Fall, 
we passed through several small lakes connected 
with each other by narrow, deep, grassy streams, 
and at noon arrived at the Painted Stone. Num- 
bers of musk-rats frequent these Streams; and we 
observed, in the course of the morning, many of 
their mud-houses rising in a conical form to the 
height of two or three feet above the grass of the 
Swamps in which they were built, 
