$6 



Journal of a Voyage through the 



weather was now very sultry, and at eleven we were under 

 the necessity of landing to gum our canoe. 



In about an hour we set forward, and at one in the after- 

 noon, went on shore at a lire, which we supposed to have 

 been kindled by the young men, who, as we had been 

 already informed, were hunting geese. Our hunters found 

 their canoe, and the fowl they had got, secreted in the 

 woods ; and soon after, the people themselves, whom they 

 brought to the water-side. Out of two hundred geese we 

 picked thirty-six which were eatable ; the rest were putrid 

 and emitted an horrid stench. They had been killed some 

 time without having been gutted, and in this state of loath- 

 some rottenness, we have every reason to suppose they are 

 eaten by the natives. We paid for those which we had 

 taken, and departed. At seven in the evening, the wea- 

 ther became cloudy and overcast ; at eight we encamped; 

 at nine, it began to thunder with great violence ; an heavy 

 rain succeeded, accompanied with an hurricane, that blew 

 down our tents, and threatened to carry away the canoe, 

 which had been fastened to some trees with a cod-line. 

 The storm lasted two hours, and deluged us with wet. i 



Wednesday 29. Yesterday the weather was cloudy, and 

 the heat insupportable ; and now we could not put on 

 clothes enough to keep us warm. We embarked at a quar- 

 ter past four, with an aft wind, which drove us on at a 

 great rate, though the current is very strong. At ten we 

 came to the other rapid, which we got up with the line on 

 the West side, where we found it much stronger than 

 when we went down ; the water had also fallen at least five 

 feet since that time, so that several shoals appeared in the 

 river which we had not seen before. One of my hunters 

 narrowly escaped being drowned in crossing a river that 

 falls in from the Westward, and is the most considerable, 

 except the mountain river, that flows in this direction. 

 We had strong Northerly and cold wind throughout the 

 whole of the day, and took our station for the night at a 

 quarter past eight. We killed a goose, and caught some 

 young ones. 



Thursday 30. We renewed our voyage at four this 

 morning, after a very rainy night. The weather was 

 cloudy, but the cold had moderated, and the wind was 

 North-West. We were enabled to employ the sail during 

 part of the day, and encamped at about seven in the even- 

 ing. We killed eleven old geese, and forty young ones, 



