62 NARRATIVE, &c 



stones, can be compared to nothing so aptly, as the emotion which 

 every one has felt as the enterprise of youth has buoyed him 

 up, in directing his tiny sled down a snow covered declivity. 

 The brevity of the emotion takes away nothing from the truth 

 of -the comparison. The flowing rock, often rears its dark head 

 to dispute the passage, and calls for the exertion of every mus- 

 cle, in the canoemen, to avoid, by dexterity of movement, a 

 violent contact. Often it became necessary for them to step 

 into the channel, and lead down the canoes, where the violence 

 of the eddies made it impracticable otherwise to guide them. 

 At a place called Kakabikons, or the Little-rock falls, we made 

 a short portage. Two of. the canoes, however, made the de- 

 scent, but not without imminent peril, and a delay eventually 

 greater, than if they had been carried across the portage. We de- 

 scended this second series of rapids a distance of about nine miles, 

 and encamped, at a late hour, on a high fine bank, having come 

 altogether about thirty -two miles below Itasca Lake. Wearied 

 with the continued exertion, the frequent wettings, and the con- 

 stant anxiety, sleep soon overshadowed the whole party, " with 

 his downy pinions." 



