THE PEKIBONCA AND TSCHOTAGAMA 185 



coffee, sugar, and pork, which had been packed for us 

 at the Hotel Roberval, the guides, of whom the leaders 

 were the full-blooded Indians Joseph Simeon and Jo- 

 seph Kepton, transferred the canoes from the steamer 

 on to the water, packed the supplies, and started to 

 paddle us up the broad stream. We were in appar- 

 ently placid water, but the current was so strong that, 

 despite the hard paddling of the two men in each 

 canoe, we made that day but twelve miles from where 

 we had left the steamer. The first part of the jour- 

 ney was devoid of interest, with the exception of that 

 attaching to the magnificence of the river, which con- 

 tinued to average from one-third to two-thirds of a 

 mile in width. 



Most of the best timber had been cut away from the 

 banks, which in places showed traces of magnetic iron 

 sand in fairly large quantities. Sometimes the banks 

 were seventy-five feet or more in height, and so nearly 

 vertical that narrow streams of sand rolled slowly 

 down them as if measuring time in an hour-glass. We 

 landed on the western bank, for luncheon, about noon, 

 and two or three hours' further paddling brought us 

 to the first falls of the Peribonca, the roar of which 

 could be distinctly heard for more than half an hour 

 before we sighted them. One is irresistibly lost in 

 admiration upon contemplating this magnificent cata- 

 ract. It is formed by a long series of successive 

 falls, in which the river is crowded by immense boul- 

 ders of granite and gneiss into an extremely narrow 

 gorge, where, in the space of about two hundred feet, 

 the foaming waters, dashing continuous clouds of 

 spray high into the air, are plunged downward more 



