CHAPTER XIII 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE RETURN JOURNEY 

 TO THE OTTAWA RIVER 



Having supplied ourselves with sufficient stores to last 

 at least six weeks, supplemented, of course, with such 

 game as we should shoot en route, we started on the 

 return journey on the afternoon of the 27th, paddling 

 about nine miles up the river, and passing the night on 

 the bank. The days were fine, generally; the nights 

 bitterly cold. On the last day of April there was a snow 

 shower, but it thawed soon after fallmg, though there 

 was much snow still lying in sheltered spots. May day 

 was memorable for a heavy rain, which drenched us to 

 the skin, and made us as miserable as miserable could be. 



I am not going to give a daily relation of the in- 

 cidents of this journey, because it was too monotonous to 

 be of general interest. Briefly, it entailed the hardest work 

 I had as yet performed since arriving in America. The 

 portages were frequent, and some of them several miles 

 in length; and those short reaches of the river which 

 connected two lakes had generally so strong a current 

 that if a portage was not absolutely necessary the work 

 of paddling against the stream was most laborious, 

 especially to a comparative youth, as I was at the time. 



The banks of the river were usually of great height — 

 as much as eighty or ninety feet, quite shutting out a 

 view of the country; but it was flat for a considerable 

 distance from the shores of Hudson Bay. The forest 

 region commenced about seven or eight miles from 

 the mouth of the Severn ; but it was somewhat broken 



