1 30 Journal of a Voyage through the* 



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them, sometimes found their way to the flesh. The shrubs 

 are, the gooseberry, the currant, and the several kinds of 

 briars. 



Friday 24. We continued our very laborious journey, 

 which led us down some steep hills, and through a wood of 

 tali pines. After much toil and trouble in bearing the 

 canoe through the difficult passages which we encountered, 

 at four in the afternoon we arrived at the river, some hun- 

 dred yards above the rapids or falls, with all our baggage, 

 I compute the distance of this day's progress to be about 

 four miles ; indeed, I should have measured the whole of 

 the way, if I had not been obliged to engage personally in 

 the labour of making the road. But after all, the Indian 

 carrying way, whatever may be its length, and I think it 

 cannot exceed ten miles, will always be found more safe 

 and expeditious than the passage which our toil and per- 

 severance formed and surmounted. 



Those of my people who visited this place on the 21st, 

 were of opinion that the water had risen very much since 

 that time. About two hundred yards below us, the stream 

 rushed with an astonishing but silent velocity, between 

 perpendicular rocks, which are not more than thirty-five 

 yards asunder : when the water is high, it runs over those 

 rocks, in a channel three times that breadth, where it is 

 bounded by far more elevated precipices. In the former 

 are deep, round holes, some of which are full of water, 

 while others are empty, in whose bottom are small, round 

 stones, as smooth as marble. Some of these natural cy- 

 linders would contain two' hundred gallons. At a small 

 distance below the first of these rocks, the channel widens 

 in a kind of zig-zag progression ; and it was really awful 

 to behold, with what infinite force the water drives against 

 the rocks on one side, and with what impetuous strength 

 it is repelled to the other : it then falls back, as it were, 

 into a more straight but rugged passage, over which it is 

 tossed in high, foaming, half-formed billows, as far as the 

 eye could follow it. 



The young men informed me that this was the place 

 where their relations had told me that I should meet with 

 a fall equal to that of Niagara : to exculpate them, how- 

 ever, from their apparent misinformation, they declared 

 that their friends were not accustomed to utter falsehoods, 

 and that the fall had probably been destroyed by the force 

 of the water. It is, however, very evident, that these 



