68 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



a generally flat country, but partially composed, as 

 I have already said, of sand-hills and steep bluffs. 

 Its course is the most peculiar I have ever seen in 

 any river ; it twists and twines in a most miraculous 

 manner, forming loops and figures of eight, and 

 every kind of geometrical figure that can be made 

 by curves. Two bends of the river will approach 

 each other till they are separated only by a little neck 

 of land a few yards in width, and then go away for 

 ever so far, sweeping back again in such a manner 

 that I should think a man in a canoe might have to 

 travel twenty miles to accomplish a distance of 

 perhaps two or three miles in a straight line 

 by land. 



Where the stream has cut through high sand- 

 hills or bluffs the banks are of course precipitous, 

 almost perpendicular, but as a general rule there is 

 a margin some hundred yards or so in width be- 

 tween the edge of the stream and the high steep 

 hills which form the banks of the river. Through 

 these hills, composed of loose sand and other soft 

 materials, winter rains have worn deep gullies, large 

 enough to be termed canons, precipitous valleys 

 leading up from the river, at right angles to its 

 general course, to the level of the plain, and from 

 these valleys other and smaller canons branch off 



