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Journal of a Voyage through the 



did not venture to trust the guide out of my sight, in search 

 of bark, and to endeavour, if it were possible, in the course 

 of the day, to penetrate to the great river, into which that 

 before us discharges itself in the direction which the guide 

 had communicated. I now joined my people, in order to 

 repair, as well as circumstances would admit, our wreck 

 of a canoe, and I began to set them the example. 



At noon I had an altitude, wdiich gave 54. 23. North 

 latitude. At four in the afternoon I took time, with the 

 hope that in the night I might obtain an observation of Ju- 

 piter and his satellites, but I had not a sufficient horizon, 

 from the propinquity of the mountains. The result of my 

 calculation for time was 1. 38. 28. slow apparent time. 

 ■ It now grew late, and the people who had been sent on 

 the excursion already mentioned, were not yet returned ; 

 about ten o'clock, how r ever, I heard a man halloo, and I 

 very gladly returned the signal. In a short time our young 

 Indian arrived with a small roll of indifferent bark : he was 

 oppressed with fatigue and hunger, and his clothes torn to 

 rags: he had parted with the other two men at sun-set, 

 who had walked the whole day, in a dreadful country, 

 without procuring any good bark, or being able to get to 

 to the large river. His account of the river, on w T hose 

 / banks we were, could not be more unfavourable or dis- 



couraging; it had appeared to him to be little more than 

 a succession of falls and rapids, With occasional interrup- 

 tions of fallen trees. 



Our guide became so dissatisfied and troubled in mind, 

 that we could not obtain from him any regular account of 

 the country before us. All we could collect from him 

 was, that the river into which this empties itself is but a 

 branch of a large river, the great fork being at no great 

 distance from the confluence of this ; and that he knew 

 of no lake, or large body of still w r ater, in the vicinity of 

 these rivers. To this account of the country, he added 

 some strange, fanciful, but terrifying descriptions of the 

 natives, similar to those wfiich were mentioned in the 

 former voyage. 



We had an escape this day, which I must add to the 

 many instances of good fortune which I experienced in 

 this perilous expedition. The powder had been spread 

 out, to the amount of eighty pounds weight, to receive the 

 air ; and, in this situation, one of the men carelessly and 

 composedly walked across it with a lighted pipe in his 



