34 RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



tures, being dreadfully affected with scrofula. Some of 

 the men, however, possessed splendid looking figures, but 

 the progress of civilisation will soon close the history of 

 these wretched Indians of the Kaministiquia. 



Our first brigade, consisting of two large five fathom, 

 and one middle size canoe, containing twenty-six men 

 in all, started from Fort William at 5 p. M., and arrived 

 opposite McKay's Mountain at about half-past six. Half 

 a mile above the mission we noticed a very neat house 

 in a clearing of about ten acres in extent, the last 

 effort of civilisation to be seen, with the exception 

 of an occasional post of the Hudson's Bay Company, 

 for many hundred miles. The first camp was pitched 

 about three-quarters of a mile beyond McKay's Moun- 

 tain. 



Opposite this magnificent exposure of trap, the clay 

 banks of the river are about 14 feet high, and continue 

 to rise on one side or the other until they attain an 

 elevation of nearly 60 feet, often, however, retiring from 

 the present bed of the river, and giving place to an allu- 

 vial terrace, some 8 or 10 feet in altitude, and clothed 

 with the richest profusion of grasses and twining flowering 

 plants. The current begins to be rapid about nine miles 

 above Fort William soon after passing Point de Meuron, 

 the site of the fort established by Lord Selkirk before re- 

 ferred to, and continues so, in the ascending course of the 

 stream, to the foot of the first demi-portage, called the 

 Decharges des Paresseux, where an exposure of shale 

 creates the rapids which occasion the portage. The fall 

 here is 5 feet 1 inch, in a space of 924 feet. The dis- 

 tance of this portage from the lake, by the windings of 

 the river, is about 22 \ miles, and the total rise probably 

 reaches 35 feet. 



