144 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



On the following morning we went down 

 to these Indians, and delivered to them notes 

 on the North-West Company, for the meat 

 and skins they had furnished ; and we had 

 then the mortification of learning, that not 

 having people to carry a considerable quan- 

 tity of pounded meat, which they had in- 

 tended for us, they had left it upon the 

 Bear Lake Portage. They promised, how- 

 ever, to get it conveyed to the banks of this 

 river before we could return, and we re- 

 warded them with a present of knives and 

 files. 



After re-embarking we continued to de- 

 scend the river, which was now contracted 

 between lofty banks to about one hundred 

 and twenty yards wide ; the current was 

 very strong. At eleven we came to a 

 rapid which had been the theme of dis- 

 course with the Indians for many days, and 

 which they had described to us as impas- 

 sable in canoes. The river here descends 

 for three quarters of a mile in a deep, but 

 narrow and crooked, channel, which it has 

 cut through the foot of a hill of five hun- 



