N'AKUATIVK, &c. 41 



But we ore writing a homily, where W6 intended to offer ■ 

 few hints, and must liic to the labor of the journey before us. 

 Every arrangement being completed on the evening of the 10th, 

 WC embarked, at the island, at three o'clock the next morning. 

 Our course lay westward, through a strait, formed by the ap- 

 proach of a part of the island, to a part of the main shore. Wfl 

 then passed two islands, called Garden and Elm islands. The 

 morning was too hazy to give us any extensive prospect of the 

 lake, or its shores. We had been a little more than an hour in 

 motion, when we found ourselves nearing the western head of 

 the lake, and the men soon shoved our canoes upon a sandy 

 beach, with the exclamation of un portage. Wfl found this 

 portage to extend about fifty yards, over a plain of sand, bear- 

 ing pine, and terminating on the banks of a small lake. Through 

 this lake the Mississippi has its course, and the two lakes arc 

 connected by a circuitous channel, which might, perhaps, have 

 occupied a half, or three quarters of an hour, to ascend. The 

 lake, for which we heard no name, is several miles in extent. 

 We passed it transversely, and entered the channel of the river 

 on its western border. It presents a still current, with an 

 edging of savannah, which, at no great distance above, is again 

 expanded around the margin of another lake, called Tascodiac* 

 Hills of sand, covered with yellow pines, here present them- 

 selves, and the river exhibits for several miles above, either a 

 sand bank, or a savannah border. Time is the only measure of 

 distance, which we had the means of referring to. About eight 

 o'clock, rapid water was encountered, and at this point, which 

 may be fifteen miles above Cass Lake, the meadow lands cease. 

 Boulders, of a primitive character, are found on the rapids. 

 The rapids are such, in their force and inequality of depth, u 

 to require the men frequently to wade, and pull up the canoes. 

 There are, say, ten of these principal rapids, in the ensuing 

 twenty or twenty-five miles, at which distance, we reach the 

 most northern point of the Mississippi, which is marked by the 



• Or Pami -tascodiac. 



