THE PERIBONCA AND TSCHOTAGAMA 183 



that we determined upon returning the way we had 

 come, more especially as there were mighty rapids to 

 be run in our canoes in descending the stream that we 

 had for the most part to portage around on the way 

 up. A very charming and extended report of the entire 

 journey from Colonel Haggard's pen or rather pencil, 

 for most of it was written in his scribbling book, sitting 

 in his canoe en route appeared in the May (1893) num- 

 ber of Blackwootfs Magazine. His appreciation of the 

 character of the Peribonca River is tersely expressed 

 in the following lines : 



"The Peribonca, it may be remarked, is a noble river that is 

 known to have a course of at least five hundred miles. I may fur- 

 ther add, after personal experience, that it is an awful river, and 

 one that no nervous-brained or timid person should venture to 

 ascend in a canoe, lest, by any involuntary movement at some crit- 

 ical time, both he and those with him be hurled into eternity ; for 

 an untimely exclamation, even, might result in all being cast into 

 one of its myriad fearful maelstroms, either to be madly dashed 

 against the iron rocks that everywhere spring up from below, and 

 also fringe this dreadful tide, or down one of the numerous foaming 

 rapids rushing relentlessly through narrow, dark-browed gorges in 

 a succession of waves that frequently almost equal in height and 

 fury the terrific rapids of Niagara itself. When Mr. Chambers and 

 1 were talking over the events of the day one night, in our little 

 camp at the head of the ninth or tenth cataract, around which we 

 had portaged, he made use of an expression concerning the river 

 which I think exactly describes it. 'I call it,' he said, ' frightfully 

 furious ' ; and that throughout a great part of its career, as far as 

 we went, it most certainly is. Yet there are also many sweet 

 stretches of peaceful and almost Thames-like beauty upon its 

 bosom spots where it broadens out from its usual width of about 

 half a mile in the main channel into from a mile to a mile and a half, 

 where islands, with their graceful foliage reflected on the water, are 

 judiciously thrown in by nature's fostering hand, and where the 

 forest-clad banks, instead of being high, beetling cliffs, are low and 



