312 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Fort Alexander as the end of their hard work, it 

 being clear-sailing from thence to Fort Garry. The 

 finest scenery on the river is at Silver Falls ; there is 

 nothing that can compare with them in Northern 

 America to the eastward of Red River. Niagara is 

 a thing apart, as there is nothing elsewhere that can 

 be likened to it. Silver Falls, as a great rapid, also 

 stands alone. Time pressed, so we had to hurry past 

 them; but their magnificent grandeur will long re- 

 main impressed upon the memory as a glorious pic- 

 ture, illustrating the vast power of running water. 

 Owing to some dividing rocks above, the stream 

 rushes down this steep incline in two separate 

 volumes, which appear so to jostle one another in 

 their downward race, that in the centre the water 

 is pushed up into a high ridge, marking their line of 

 contact, until both are lost in the great chaos of foam, 

 spray, and broken water below. 



The leading brigades reached Fort Alexander on 

 the morning of the 18th August, having descended 

 the river without accident in nine and a half days 

 instead of twenty, as the Hudson Bay Company voy- 

 ageurs, who were ignorant what well -led British 

 soldiers can do, said we should take. By the even- 

 ing of the 20th August all the regular troops were 

 concentrated there, the brigades of militia being 

 echeloned along the river in rear, at close intervals 

 one behind the other. There was not a sick man 

 amongst those collected at Fort Alexander all 



