283 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



would have been prevented by keeping on the 

 western side of the lake, instead of crossing the 

 river. We were informed also, that this river 

 is the Anatessy or River of Strangers, and is 

 supposed to fall into Bathurst's Inlet ; but although 

 the Indians have visited its mouth, their descrip- 

 tion was not sufficient to identify it with any of 

 the rivers whose mouths we had seen. It proba- 

 bly falls in that part of the coast which was hid 

 from our view by Goulburn's or Elliott's Islands. 

 September 10,— We had a cold north wind, and 

 the atmosphere was foggy. The thermometer 

 18° at five A.M. In the course of our march 

 this morning, we passed many small lakes ; and 

 the ground, becoming higher and more hiUy as 

 we receded from the river, was covered to a 

 much greater depth with snow. This rendered 

 walking not only extremely laborious, but also 

 hazardous in the highest degree ; for the sides 

 of the hills, as is usual throughout the barren 

 grounds, abounding in accumulations of large 

 angular stones, it often happened that the men 

 fell into the interstices with their loads on their 

 backs, being deceived by the smooth appearance 

 of the drifted snow. If any one had broken a 

 limb here, his fate would have been melancholy 

 indeed; we could neither have remained with 

 him, nor carried him on. We halted at ten to 

 gather tripe de roche, but it was so frozen, that we 



