HUNTING ON THE UPPER GANDER 119 



slightly at the bottom. With every care, they would not hold 

 out long unless the river offered some "steady" water, and 

 this it showed no signs of doing, but rather became shallower 

 at every mile. There was now no part in the whole stream 

 that would take a man above the knees, and the river was 

 not narrowing ; it was still about 1 20 yards wide, the same 

 as twenty miles below. 



The autumn of 1902 had been an exceptionally dry 

 season, but that of 1903 was infinitely drier, and quite ruined 

 my original project, which was to reach a point beyond the 

 Partridgeberry Hills, portage our stuff across to Dog Lake 

 River, thence on to the Big Lake river system of Round, Brazil, 

 Long Lakes, down through Bale d'Est to Bale d'Espoir, 

 where I could have got a boat from the Indians to take me 

 to the weekly steamer which calls in Hermitage Bay, and 

 so eventually to St. John's. Only one man has yet accom- 

 plished this journey, and if we had had water above Burnt 

 Hill I think we should also have carried it out. 



On the morning of i8th September, the men were in 

 constant difficulties ; one of the boats would catch on a sharp 

 upright rock or narrow stony bar, and had either to be 

 forcibly hauled over or some of the contents had to be taken 

 out, portaged a few yards, and then replaced. It was slow, 

 toilsome work for the men and disappointing, as I had now 

 little chance of reaching the Partridgeberry Hills. By mid- 

 day we had only accomplished three miles, having started 

 soon after daybreak, and the Great Gander, which looks so 

 important on the map at the inflow of the Little Gull River, 

 was nothing more than a broad flat bank of stones, with a 

 little water trickling through them. Little Gull River, where 

 we stopped to have dinner, joins the Gander sixty miles 

 from the lake and seventy-five from the sea. It is a much 



