486 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



one of the Indians for a new and stronger one ; but, 

 taking advantage of our situation, he placed upon it a 

 much greater value than I felt inclined to give. 



Having made sections of the river, and examined the 

 country bordering the Little Saskatchewan, we left it on 

 the 31st of August, but were detained the greater part of 

 the day on a point only a few miles from the mouth of 

 the river, by unfavourable wind and in consequence of 

 the sickness of Louis, our steersman, who, being a pretty 

 old man, was disabled from over exertion in the storm on 

 Sunday. 



On the 1st of September, while sailing with a side wind 

 across the mouth of a deep bay, in which there was 

 rather a heavy sea rolling, a large swell broke over us, 

 throwing in a great deal of water, and from the evening 

 of the 1st of September until the morning of the 5th we 

 were windbound on a low marshy point on the north-east 

 side of the great bay into which the Little Saskatchewan 

 empties. The spot on which we were imprisoned is very 

 much circumscribed, being a narrow sand-beach, about a 

 chain in length, and bounded on three sides by an exten- 

 sive marsh. During the three days that the storm lasted 

 the wind blew a hurricane from the KN.W., raising a 

 tremendous sea on the lake, and the surf beating along 

 the shore, washed away several yards of the sand-beach 

 on which we were encamped. The weather was clear the 

 first day, but on the second and third days it rained almost 

 incessantly, and it was then for the first time on our voyage 

 that we really felt the want of a sufficiency of food, as 

 our stock of provisions was reduced to a few pounds of 

 rather mouldy pemmican, which I determined to eke out 

 as long as possible, being still a great distance from Eed 

 Eiver (upwards of 170 miles by the canoe route), and 

 with that object in view we made it a rule to eat only 

 one meal a day while we were windbound, unless we 



