118 NARRATIVE, &c 



appeared to be unavoidable under the particular circumstances 

 of our local position. It may, perhaps, be thought, that the 

 giving up of one seventh part of the whole time, employed on 

 a public expedition in a very remote region, and with many 

 men to subsist, must have, in this ratio, increased the time de- 

 voted to the route. But the result was far otherwise. The 

 time devoted to recruit the men, not only gave the surgeon of 

 the party an opportunity to heal up the bruises and chafings they 

 complained of, but it replenished them with strength ; they 

 commenced the week's labor with renewed zest, and this zest 

 was, in a measure, kept up by the reflection, that the ensuing 

 Sabbath would be a day of rest. It was found by computing 

 the whole route, and comparing the time employed, with that 

 which had been devoted on similar routes, in this part of the 

 world, that an equal space had been gone over, in less time, than 

 it had ever been known to be performed, by loaded canoes, or (as 

 the fact is) by light canoes, before. And the whole expedition, 

 its incidents and results, have been of a character furnishing 

 strong reasons for uniting in ascriptions of praise to that Eter- 

 nal Power, who hath been our shield from " the pestilence that 

 walketh in darkness, and from the destruction that wasteth at 

 noon-day." 



