136 Thirty Years 



baggage beino; left behind, our canoes would now, of 

 course, travel infinitely more expeditiously than any 

 thing he had hitherto witnessed. Akaitcho appeared 

 to feel hurt, that we should continue to press the 

 matter further, and answered with some warmth : 

 " Well, I have said everything I can urge, to dissuade 

 you from going on this service, on which it seems, you 

 wish to sacrifice your own lives, as well as the Indians 

 who might attend you : however, if after all I have 

 said, you are determined to go, some of my young men 

 shall join the party, because it shall not be said, that 

 we permitted you to die alone after having brought 

 you hither ; but from the moment they embark in the 

 canoes, 1 and my relatives shall lament them as dead.'' 



We could only reply to this forcible appeal, by 

 assuring him and the Indians who were seated around 

 him, that we felt the most anxious solicitude for the 

 safety of every individual, and that it was far from 

 our intention to proceed without considering every 

 argument for and against the proposed journey. 



We in \t informed him, that it would be very de- 

 sirabl e the river at any rate, that we might 



give some positive information about its situation and 



size, in our next letters to the great chief; and that 



we were very anxious to get on its banks for the pur- 



of observing an eclipse of the sun, which we 



ibed to him, and said would happen in a few 



