12Q Journal of a Voyage through the 



distance below, at the foot of a very strong rapid, and that 

 as several waterfalls appeared up the river, we should be 

 obliged to unload and carry. I accordingly hastened to 

 the canoe, and was greatly displeased that so much time 

 had been lost, as I had given previous directions that the 

 river should be followed as long as it was practicable. The 

 last Indians whom we saw had informed us, that at the 

 first mountain there was a considerable succession of ra- 

 pids, cascades, and falls, which they never attempted to 

 ascend ; and where they always passed over land the length 

 of a day's march. My men imagined that the carrying- 

 place was at a small distance below us, as a path appeared 

 to ascend an hill, where there were several lodges, of the 

 last year's construction. The account which had been 

 given me of the rapids, was perfectly correct : though by 

 crossing to the other side, I must acknowledge with some 

 risk, in such an heavy-laden canoe, the river appeared to 

 me to be practicable, as far as we could see : the traverse, 

 therefore, was attempted, and proved successful. We 

 now towed the canoe along an island, and proceeded with- 

 out any considerable difficulty till we reached the extremity 

 of it, when the line could be no longer employed ; and in 

 endeavouring to clear the point of the island, the canoe 

 was driven with such violence on a stony shore, as to re- 

 ceive considerable injury. We now employed every ex- 

 ertion in our power to repair the breach that had been 

 made, as well as to dry such articles of our loading as 

 more immediately required it: we then transported the 

 whole across the point, when we re-loaded, and continued 

 our course about three quarters of a mile. We could now 

 proceed no further on this side of the water, and the tra- 

 verse was rendered extremely dangerous, not only from 

 the strength of the current, but by the cascades just below 

 us, which, if we had got among them, would have in- 

 volved us and the canoe in one common destruction. We 

 had no other alternative than to return by the same course 

 we came, or to hazard the traverse, the river on this side 

 being bounded by a range of steep, over-hanging rocks, 

 beneath which the current was driven on with resistless 

 impetuosity from the cascades. Here are several islands 

 of solid rock, covered with a small portion of verdure, 

 which have been worn away by the constant force of the 

 current, and occasionally, as I presume, of ice, at the 

 water's edge, so as to be reduced in that part to one-fourth 



