THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 323 



and we were again in the boats by 6 A.M., rowing in 

 three columns towards Fort Garry, as upon the pre- 

 ceding day. It poured heavily, and the country was 

 at places a sheet of water, through which our skir- 

 mishers on the banks had to wade as best they 

 could. As we approached the Protestant cathedral, 

 the union-jack was run up to the steeple, and its 

 bells rang out a musical welcome to the expeditionary 

 force. The left bank was neatly cultivated and well 

 settled, the population being entirely of English and 

 Scotch descent. The other bank was a tangled mass 

 of poor timber, and an underbrush consisting of hazel 

 and rose bushes, interwined with Virginia creeper. 

 The moderately-rapid current in the river has, in the 

 course of ages, cut out for itself a canal-like channel, 

 which averaged from 150 to 300 yards in width. 

 The floods in spring, when the ice breaks up, have 

 in the last twenty years doubled in some places the 

 distance between the banks, which are of most tena- 

 cious clay, steep throughout, and generally about 

 thirty feet high. We landed at a place called Point 

 Douglas, on the left bank, where the river makes a 

 great bend to the eastward ; so that, although it is 

 only about two miles by road to the Fort, it is about 

 six there by river. Our skirmishers had collected a 

 few carts and horses, sufficient for the conveyance of 

 some tools, ammunition, &c., &c. The guns were 

 fastened by their trails to the rear of carts, and 

 dragged along in that manner. Messengers who had 



