THE ATHABASCA EIVER REGION 123 



Towards evening we reached the Crooked Eapid — Kahwa- 

 kak o Powestik — and here the portage path followed on the 

 summit of the limestone rampart, which the viscous gumbo- 

 slides made almost impassable in rainy weather, and indeed 

 very dangerous, forming, at the time we passed, pits of 

 mud and broken masses of half-hard clay, along the very 

 verge of the wall of rock, likely at any moment to give way 

 and precipitate one into the raging torrent below. At other 

 parts the path was jammed out to the wall-edge, to be stepped 

 round with a gulp in the throat. But these and other fea- 

 tures of a like interesting chara'cter, though a lively experi- 

 ence to the tenderfoot, were of no account whatever to those 

 wonderful trackers. At one of the worst spots I was hesi- 

 tating as to how and where I should step next, when a 

 carrier, returning for his load, seeing my fix, humped his 

 back with a laugh and gave me a lift over. 



We camped for the night below a point where the river 

 makes a sharp bend, parallel with its course. This we sur- 

 mounted in the morning, following a rounded wall of lime- 

 stone, for all the world like a decayed rampart of some 

 ancient city. A wide floor of rock at its base made beauti- 

 ful walking to a place where the lofty escarpment showed 

 exposures of limestone underlying an enormous mass of 

 dark sandstone, topped by tar-clay. It -is a portentous cliff, 

 bearing a curiously Eastern look, as if some great pyramid 

 had been riven vertically, and the exposed surface scarred 

 and scooped by the weather into a multitude of antic hol- 

 lows, grotesque projections, and unimaginable shapes. Here, 

 also, the knives of passers-by had carved numerous auto- 

 graphs, marring the majestic cliff with their ludicrous 

 incongruity. Are we not all sinners in this way ? " John 

 Jones," cut into a fantastic buttress which would fittingly 

 adorn a wizard's temple, paay be a poor exhibit of human 

 vanity; but, after all, the real John Jones is more imperish- 

 able than the rock, which seems scaling, anyway, from' the 

 top, and may, by and by, carry the inscriptions with it. It 



