40 



A JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



treats his companions with rum, and they in return, strip the tree of 

 its branches, and ever after designate it by his name. 



In the afternoon, whilst on my way to superintend the operations 

 of the men, a stratum of loose moss gave way under my feet, and I 

 had the misfortune to slip from the summit of a rock into the river, 

 betwixt two of the falls. My attempts to regain the bank were, for 

 a time, ineffectual, owing to the rocks within my reach having been 

 worn smooth by the action of the water, but after I had been carried 

 a considerable distance down the stream, I caught hold of a willow, 

 by which I held until two gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 came in a boat to my assistance. The only bad consequence of this 

 accident was an injury sustained by a very valuable chronometer, 

 (No. 1733,) belonging to Daniel Moore, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. One 

 of the gentlemen, to whom I delivered it immediately on landing, in 

 his agitation let it fall, whereby the minute-hand was broken, but 

 the works were not in the smallest degree injured, and the loss of the 

 hand was afterwards supplied. 



During the night the frost was severe, and at sun-rise, on the 3d, 

 the thermometer stood at 25°. After leaving our encampment at the 

 White Fall, we passed through several small lakes connected with 

 each other by narrow, deep, grassy streams, and at noon arrived at 

 the Painted Stone. Numbers of musk-rats frequent these streams, 

 and we observed, in the course of the morning, many of their mud- 

 houses rising in a conical form to the height of two or three feet 

 above the grass of the swamps in which they are built. 



The Painted Stone is a low rock, ten or twelve yards across, re- 

 markable for the marshy streams which arise on each side of it, taking 

 different courses. On ^he one side, the water-course which we had 

 navigated from York Factory commences. This spot may therefore 

 be considered as one of the smaller sources of Hayes' Eiver. On the 

 other side of the stone the Echemamis arises, and taking a westerly 

 direction falls into Nelson Kiver. It is said that there was formerly 



