186 THE PEKIEONCA AND TSCHOTAGAMA 



than half a hundred feet, sometimes by precipitous 

 descents into a concave basin, whence, at its lower ex- 

 tremity, the very velocity of their fall throws them 

 upward as well as onward over the uppermost verge 

 of opposing rocks ; sometimes over a rapid succession 

 of boulders scattered in irregular but seemingly more 

 graduated descent, until a final plunge deeply disposes 

 them upon an equally narrow bod of somewhat less 

 uneven rock, where they form a series of angry rapids 

 continuing for more than a thousand feet. The por- 

 tage is around the westerly side of the cataract, over a 

 series of boulders flanked on either side by yet higher 

 and more massive rocks. Nobody needs to be told 

 that this deep pathway, when the Peribonca, in spring- 

 time, is twenty to thirty feet above its usual summer 

 level, is the bed of another mighty cataract. In as- 

 cending, the Indians usually make a portage of three 

 or four hundred yards only ; they run ashore near the 

 foot of the rapids, and take the river again immedi- 

 ately above the falls at a few feet only from the brink 

 of the precipice, where the velocity of the current is 

 something really alarming to the tourist who finds 

 himself afloat upon it for the first time. It is easy for 

 the last of the guides that embark in the frail craft to 

 hold it alongside the rocks until he, too, has stepped 

 aboard. But then commences a very struggle for ex- 

 istence. The power of the current to force the canoe 

 along with it over the cataract is with difficulty held 

 in check at first, and finally but narrowly overcome 

 by the desperate efforts of the men .with the paddles. 

 Vigorouslj^ as for very life, do they ply their blades 

 in the water or pry them against the boulders at the 



