CHAPTER VII. 

 DOWN THE PEACE BIVEB. 



We had now to descend the river, and our first night in the 

 boats was a bad one. A small but exceedingly diligent 

 variety of mosquito attacked us unprepared ; but no ordinary 

 net could have kept them out, anyway. It was a case of 

 heroic endurance, for Beelzebub reigned. The immediate 

 bank of the river was now somewhat low in places, and along 

 it ran a continuous wall, or layer, of sandstone of a uniform 

 height. The stream was vast, with many islands in its course, 

 and whole forests of burnt timber were passed before we 

 reached Battle River, ITO miles down, and which, on the 

 25th, we left behind us towards evening. Next morning we 

 reached Wolverine Point, a dismal hamlet of six or seven 

 cabins, with a graveyard in their midst. The majority of 

 the half-breeds of the locality had collected here, the others 

 being out hunting. This is a good farming coimtry. Eight- 

 een miles north-west of Paddle River there is a prairie, we 

 were told, of rich black soil, twenty-five miles long and from 

 one to five miles wide, and another south-west of Wolverine, 

 about nine miles in diameter and thirty-six in circumference 

 — clean prairie and good soil, and covered with Ivixuriant 

 grass and pea-vine. The latter, I think, is watered by a 

 stream called " The Keg," or " Keg of Rum." Wolverine is 

 also a region of heavy spruce timber, and fish are abundant 

 in the various streams which join the Peace River, though 

 not in the Peace itself. 



We were now approaching Vermilion, the banks of the 

 river constantly decreasing in height as we descended, until 

 they became quite low. Beneath a waning moon in the south, 



92 



