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JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



cargo, the people attempted to track the 

 canoes along the edge of the rapid. With 

 the first they succeeded, but the other, in 

 which were the foreman and steersman, was 

 overset and swept away by the current. 

 An account of this misfortune was speedily 

 conveyed to the upper end of the portage, 

 and the men launched the remaining canoe 

 into the rapid, though wholly unacquainted 

 with the dangers of it. The descent was 

 quickly accomplished, and they perceived 

 the bottom of the lost canoe above water in 

 a little bay, whither it had been whirled by 

 the eddy. One man had reached the bank, 

 but no traces could be found of the fore- 

 man, Louis Saint Jean. We saved the 

 canoe, out of which two guns and a case of 

 preserved meats had been thrown into the 

 rapid.* So early a disaster deeply affected 

 the spirits of the Canadians, and their 

 natural vivacity gave way to melancholy 



* Mr. Hood himself was the first to leap into the 

 canoe and incite the men to follow him, and shoot the 

 rapid to save the lives of their companions. — Dr. 

 Richardson's Journal. 



