TRAVELS I.N THE CAL1F0RNIAS. 
13 
fallen cliffs, among; which dash and roar numerous rivers 
on their way to the frozen sea. Scarcely any timber or 
other vegetation grows in these wastes. A lonely evergreen 
or a stunted white birch takes root here and there, and dur¬ 
ing the few weeks of summer, mosses and linchens pre¬ 
sent a few verdant spots in the damp recesses of the rocks. 
But cold winds, laden with hail and sleet, howl over the 
budding of every green thing ! The flowers can scarcely 
show their petals and set their seeds, before winter with its 
cracking ices and falling snow embraces them ! 
The section of country which lies about Mackensie’s 
river, differs from that described, in having dense forests 
skirting portions of the valleys, and large plains of moss 
and linchen, on which feed the deer, buffalo, musk-ox and 
moose. The river itself is, in summer months, navigable 
for batteaux several hundred miles. It is well stored with 
trout, salmon, white and other fish. But the winters there 
also scarcely end, before they begin again their work of 
freezing land, stn am, and sea. 
The extensive country lying on the head waters of the 
streams which run northward into the Frozen Ocean, east¬ 
ward into Hudson’s Bay, and southward into the Canadian 
waters, is composed of swamps, broken at intervals with 
piles of boulders and minor mountains, and dotted with 
clumps of bushes, plots of hassocks, and fields of wild rice. 
The waters of these table-lands form many lakes and lofty 
cascades on the way to their several destinations. The 
roar of these on the dreadful frozen barrenness around, Mr. 
Simpson represented to be awful in the extreme ; so wild, 
hoarse, and ringing are their echoes. 
We are informed that there are considerable tracts of 
arable land on the western side of Hudson’s Bay, occupied 
by several settlements of Scotch : that these people culti¬ 
vate nothing but potatoes, oats, barley, and some few garden 
vegetables ; and are altogether in a very undesirable con¬ 
dition. He also informed us of a tract of tillable land* 
