Journals, стр. 54
The young men informed me that this was the place where their relations had told me that I should meet with a fall equal to that of Niagara: to exculpate them, however, from their apparent misinformation, they declared that their friends were not accustomed to utter falsehoods, and that the fall had probably been destroyed by the force of the water. It is, however, very evident that those people had not been here, or did not adhere to the truth. By the number of trees which appeared to have been felled with axes, we discovered that the Knisteneaux, or some tribes who are known to employ that instrument, had passed this way. We passed through a snare enclosure, but saw no animals, though the country was very much intersected by their tracks.
.—It rained throughout the night, and till twelve this day; while the business of preparing great and small poles, and putting the canoe in order, etc. caused us to remain here till five in the afternoon. I now attached a knife, with a steel, flint, beads, and other trifling articles to a pole, which I erected, and left as a token of amity to the natives. When I was making this arrangement, one of my attendants, whom I have already described under the title of the Cancre, added to my assortment, a small round piece of green wood, chewed at one end in the form of a brush, which the Indians used to pick the marrow out of bones. This he informed me was an emblem of a country abounding in animals. The water had risen during our stay here one foot and a half perpendicular height.
We now embarked, and our course was northwest one mile and three quarters. There were mountains on all sides of us, which were covered with snow; one in particular, on the south side of the river, rose to a great height. We continued to proceed west three quarters of a mile, northwest one mile, and west-southwest a quarter of a mile, when we encamped for the night. The Cancre killed a small elk.
.—The weather was clear and sharp, and between three and four in the morning we renewed our voyage, our first course being west by south three miles and a half, when the men complained of the cold in their fingers, as they were obliged to push on the canoe with the poles. Here a small river flowed in from the north. We now continued to steer west-southwest a quarter of a mile; west-northwest a mile and a half, and west two miles, when we found ourselves on a parallel with a chain of mountains on both sides of the river, running south and north. The river, both yesterday and the early part of today, was from four to eight hundred yards wide, and full of islands, but was at this time diminished to about two hundred yards broad, and free from islands, with a smooth but strong current. Our next course was southwest two miles, when we encountered a rapid, and saw an encampment of the Knisteneaux. We now proceeded northwest by west one mile, among islands, southwest by west three quarters of a mile, south-southeast one mile, veered to southwest through islands three miles and a half, and south by east half a mile. Here a river poured in on the left, which was the most considerable that we had seen since we had passed the mountain. At seven in the evening we landed and encamped.
Though the sun had shone upon us throughout the day, the air was so cold that the men, though actively employed, could not resist it without the aid of their blanket coats. This circumstance might, in some degree, be expected from the surrounding mountains, which were covered with ice and snow; but as they are not so high as to produce the extreme cold which we suffered, it must be more particularly attributed to the high situation of the country itself, rather than to the local elevation of the mountains, the greatest height of which does not exceed fifteen hundred feet; though in general they do not rise to half that altitude.
But as I had not been able to take an exact measurement, I do not presume upon the accuracy of my conjecture. Towards the bottom of these heights, which were clear of snow, the trees were putting forth their leaves, while those in their middle region still retained all the characteristics of winter, and on the upper parts there was little or no wood.
. 12—The weather was clear, and we continued our voyage at the usual hour, when we successively found several rapids and points to impede our progress. At noon our latitude was 56° 5′ 54″ north. The Indians killed a stag; and one of the men who went to fetch it was very much endangered by the rolling down of a large stone from the heights above him.
.—The day was very cloudy. The mountains on both sides of the river seemed to have sunk, in their elevation, during the voyage of yesterday. Today they resumed their former altitude, and run so close on either side of the channel, that all view was excluded of everything but themselves. This part of the current was not broken by islands; but in the afternoon we approached some cascades, which obliged us to carry our