THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 285 



Lake takes you to Kainy Eiver, upon the right bank 

 of which stands Fort Francis, two miles from the 

 lake. The leading detachment reached this post on 

 the 4th August. They had done two hundred miles 

 in nineteen days, having taken their boats, stores, &c., 

 &c., over seventeen portages in that time, and having 

 made a good practicable road at all these seventeen 

 places. The troops in rear of them were able to make 

 the journey quicker, as they found a made road and 

 rollers laid down for the boats at every portage. 



Fort Francis, a Hudson Bay Company trading-post, 

 is exactly due west from Shebandowan Lake. It is a 

 collection of one-storied wooden buildings surrounded 

 by palisading. Although dignified by- the high-sound- 

 ing title of fort, it has no military works whatever 

 about it. The river bends here, so that immediately 

 in front of the place is a very fine fall, about twenty- 

 two feet in height, from below Avhich the broken, 

 boiling, bubbling waters send up volumes of spray, 

 covering the land, according to the direction of the 

 wind, with a perpetually-falling rain. This, and the 

 luxuriant fertility of the soil, causes the banks near 

 it to be clothed with grass of the brightest green, 

 affording the richest of pasture. After the wilderness 

 of water, rock, and scrubby wood that we had passed 

 through, the sight of cattle grazing, and of ripe wheat 

 bending before the lightest wind from the heaviness 

 of the ear, was most refreshing. Only a few acres 

 were under cultivation, although there was a consider- 



