50 NARRATIVE, Ac. 



skinning it. We stood in astonishment at the dexterity with 

 which this operation was performed. In a very few minutes it 

 was disrobed of its skin, quartered and dissected. The owner 

 presented me the quarters. He gave the moze to our guide. 

 This term comprehends all parts of the carcass except the four 

 quarters, head and entrails. Nothing was, however, thrown 

 away ; and we had occasion, at night to observe, that the aid of 

 fire enables them, with very little of the culinary art, to despatch 

 those parts of the animal, which, it might be inferred, were 

 most in need of preparation. Signs of this animal were fre- 

 quently seen, and had the objects of the journey permitted de- 

 lay, it might have been often killed. 



Our progress through the savannahs, was rendered more un- 

 pleasant than it would otherwise have been, by frequent showers 

 of rain, which gave, as is usual, a peculiar activity and virulence 

 to the musquito. When the usual hour of landing for breakfast 

 had arrived, the banks were too marshy to admit of it, and we 

 went on until a quarter past twelve. We then again renewed 

 a labor with little variety of incident. 



At half past five we came to an elevated sand-hill on the right 

 shore, covered with yellow pine, and presenting a naked face 

 towards the river. As one of the canoes required mending, I 

 directed the men to land at this spot, for that purpose. Oza 

 Windib, who was a little in the rear, at the moment, said, on 

 coming up, that we were within a few hundred yards of the 

 junction of the Naiwa, the principal tributary of this fork ; 

 that a series of rapids commenced at that point, which would 

 render it necessary to make a portage the whole extent of them, 

 and that it w 7 as better to commence the portage at this place, as 

 the river so ran, that w r e might go directly back through the for- 

 est, and strike its channel. He said that the Naiwa, which 

 came in on the left, w 7 as a stream of considerable length, and 

 originated in a lake which was infested by copper-head snakes, 

 to which its name has reference. I observed that the soil at 

 this place was of a diluvian character, and embraced pebbles, 



