DISCO VER Y OF GREA T FISH RIVER. 327 



the Simpson group of islands on the 14th August. The shores of these 

 islands presented the most striking natural features this traveller, who was 

 familiar with the most famou,s mountain ranges of Europe, had ever seen. 

 On the left were round-backed hills, from which, at various points, rose 

 columns of smoke from the fires of straggling hunters ; " but the scenery to 

 the right increased in grandeur and boldness ; and never, either in Alp or 

 Apennine, had I seen a picture of such rugged wildness. Rising to a per- 

 pendicular height of upwards of twelve hundred feet, the rocks were rent, 

 as if by some violent convulsion, into deep chasms and rugged fissures, 

 inaccessible to the nimblest animal. A few withered pines, grey with age, 

 jutted their shrivelled arms from the extreme ridge of the abyss; and on one 

 of these a majestic fishing eagle was seated, and there, unscared by our 

 cries, reigned in solitary state, the monarch of the rocky wilderness. 

 Salvator alone could have done justice to the scene." Continuing to coast 

 the north shore of the lake. Back arrived, on August 18th, at the mouth of 

 Hoarfrost River, a mountain stream broken by frequent and dangerous 

 rapids, and flowing in a south-west direction into the eastern arm of Great 

 Slave Lake. The ascent of this river, by numerous and difiicult portages, 

 in which repeated journeys required to be made for the transport of the 

 canoe and provisions, was a work of most arduous labour, occupying four 

 days. The route then led eastward among detached lakes, and on August 

 24th Back found himself again in continuous water, leading north and west 

 by Clinton-Colden Lake and Lake Aylmer, which were discovered and 

 named on the 26th. The high land on the north shore of Lake Aylmer is 

 the watershed between Great Slave Lake on the south, and some river 

 system, as yet unknown to Back, on the north-east. This river system the 

 explorer fervently hoped might prove to be that of the unexplored and 

 dreaded river of which he was in search — the Great Fish River. With the 

 view of ascertaining this. Back sent away his three men, together with 

 Maufelly, his Indian guide, on the 27th, to discover in which direction the 

 drainage of the country ran, and to find out the lake in which the mysterious 

 stream was supposed to have its source. The men had not returned on the 

 29th, and Back, taking his gun, and marching in a north-north-west direction 

 over the Sand Hills, which formed the watershed already mentioned, went 

 out to look for them. He had not proceeded far, when, ascending a hill, he 

 beheld a rapid flowing with a northward course. " Crossing two rivulets," 

 writes Back, " whose lively ripples ran due north into the rapid, the thought 

 occurred to me that these feeders might be tributaries to the Great Fish 

 River; and, yielding to that pleasant emotion, which discoverers, in the 

 first bound of their transport, may be pardoned for indulging, I threw my- 

 self down on the bank, and drank a hearty draught of the limpid water. 

 From a height a mile forward, the line of stream could be distinctly traced 



Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 



