234 NAEEATIVE OF THE EXPEDITIOISr. 



the second, that of La Salle. We proceeded beyond these to 

 a third lake of larger dimension, which the Chippewas call 

 Kubba-Kunna, or the Rest in the Path, being the site of crossing 

 of one of their noted land-trails ; I named it Lake Plantagenet. 

 Lt. Allen deemed this lake ten miles long and five wide. At a 

 point a short distance above the head of this lake, we encamped 

 at a late hour. It was now seven o'clock P. M., and we had been 

 in our canoes sixteen hours, and travelled fifty-five miles. It 

 was not easy to find ground dry enough to encamp on, and while 

 we were searching for it, rain commenced. We had pushed through 

 the ample borders of the Scirpus lacustris and other aquatic plants, 

 to a point of willows, alders, and spruce and tamarack, with 

 pinus banksiana in the distance. The ground was low and wet, 

 the foot sinking into a carpet of green moss at every tread. 

 The lower branches of the trees were dry and dead, exhibiting 

 masses of flowing gray moss. Dampness, frigidity, and gloom 

 marked the dreary spot, and when a camp fire had been kindled 

 it threw its red glare around on strange masses of thickets and 

 darkness, which might have well employed the pencil of a Michael 

 Angelo. Tired and overwearied men are not, however, much 

 given to the poetic on these occasions, and they addressed them- 

 selves at once to the pacification of that uneasy organ, the 

 stomach. Travelling with men who strangely mix up two foreign 

 languages, one falls insensibly into the same jargon habits, of 

 which I convicted myself of a notable instance this evening. I 

 had on landing and pushing into the forest, laid a green morocco 

 portfolio on the branches of a little spruce, and could not find it. 

 Keivau bemuasee, I said to one of the men, en petite chose ver, mittig 

 onsing f Have you not seen a small green roll in a sapling ? not 

 recollecting that the middle clause of the sentence, though in 

 regimen with the Ojibwa, could have only been construed by one 

 familiar both with the Canadian French and the Algonquin. 

 Such, however, proved to be the case, and he soon handed me 

 the missing portfolio. 



I observed, as the crews of the several canoes threw down their 

 day's game before the cook, there was a species of duck, the anas 

 canadensis, I think, which had a small unio attached to one of its 

 mandibles, having been engaged in opening the shell at the 

 moment it was shot. With every aid, however, from the tent and 



