RUNNING THE RAPIDS. 337 



a passage. After a halt, the navigation of the rapids was recommenced, 

 and the boat was soon whirling about in the circling pools ; and but for the 

 amazing strength of the Highlander M'Kay, who steered, it " must inevitably 

 have been crushed against the faces of the protruding rocks." "As we 

 entered the defile," continues Back, " the rocks on the right presented a high 

 and perpendicular front, so slaty and regular that it needed no force of the 

 imagination to suppose them severed at one great blow from the opposite 

 range, which, craggy, broken, and overhanging, towered in stratified and 

 many-coloured masses far above the chafing torrent. There was a deep and 

 settled gloom in the abyss— the eff"ect of which was heightened by the hollow 

 roar of the rapid, still in deep shade, and by the screaming of three large 

 hawks, which, frightened from their eyrie, were hovering high above the 

 middle of the pass, and gazing fixedly upon the first intruders on their 

 solitude ; so that I felt relieved, as it were, from a load, when we once more 

 burst forth into the bright sunshine of day. The boat was then allowed to 

 drive with the current, the velocity of which was not less than six miles 

 an hour, among whirlpools and eddies, which strongly bufieted her about. 

 The men, glad to rest from their oars, were either carelessly looking at the 

 objects which they passed, or whiffing the ever-welcome pipe, when some- 

 thing was seen swimming a little ahead. As we nearly touched it in passing, 

 the bowman, almost without looking, stretched out his hand to grasp it, but 

 drew it in again as quick as lightning, and, springing up for the boat-hook, 



called out, ' D n it, it has bit me ! it's a fox ! ' The fox immediately 



reached the bank in safety, where he began skipping about with much gaiety, 

 as if enjoying the trick he had played off" on the unsuspecting boatman." 



Proceeding onward down the river, which now broadened and deepened 

 until it assumed nearly the dimensions of the Mackenzie, Captain Back dis- 

 covered two important affluents from the right, which he named respectively 

 M'Kinley and Buchanan Rivers. Below these streams the river varied in 

 breadth from a quarter of a mile to a mile and a half ; and, after having flowed 

 in a generally eastward direction, it now, to Back's great delight, made a 

 bend to the north, the region of his hopes. On the 18th July, the captain 

 ascended a hill some distance from the river, and was puzzled to discern 

 several extensive sheets of water in almost opposite bearings, one of them 

 being due south. Owing to the intervening rocks and uneven ground, it 

 was impossible to decide whether these were lakes, or different reaches of 

 one continuous water. The difficulty was only to be solved by letting the 

 boat run with the current of the stream ; and issuing orders to this effect. 

 Back was soon carried into a wide lake, with a clear and uninterrupted 

 horizon, but glimmering with firm ice. This expansion of the stream the 

 discoverer named Lake Pelly. Crossing the lake, the explorers were carried 

 into another similar expansion, in which the unwelcome glare of ice was 

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