246 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



which has to be kept very rigid, whilst the body is 

 bent well forward. 



As it could not be expected that soldiers untrained 

 to such labour would be able to carry loads in that 

 manner, short pieces of rope with a loop at each end 

 were supplied to the boats, by means of which two 

 short poles cut in the woods at the portages as re- 

 quired were easily converted into a very efficient 

 hand-barrow, of just the dimensions required for the 

 conveyance of the small barrels in which our pork 

 and flour were packed. 



After, however, a little practice, a large proportion 

 of the men soon learned to use the common portage- 

 strap, their officers setting them the example by them- 

 selves carrying heavy loads with it. As soon as all 

 the stores had been conveyed across the portage, the 

 boats were hauled ashore, and dragged over, their 

 keels resting on small trees felled across the path to 

 act as rollers. The labour involved by hauling a 

 heavy boat up a very steep incline, to a height of 

 about a hundred feet, is no child's play. In each 

 boat there was a strong painter and a towing-line, by 

 means of which and the leather portage-straps a sort 

 of man-harness was formed when required, so that 

 forty or fifty men could haul together. Say the port- 

 age was a mile long (some were more), and that each 

 man had to make ten trips across it before all the 

 stores of his brigade were got over, he would have 

 walked nineteen miles during the operation, being 



