All this while General Middleton, with his brave fellows, had been making one of the most laborious marches recorded in modern wars.  Perhaps the worst portion of the march was around the dismal reaches of Lake Superior.  I take an extract from correspondence to the Toronto Mail.  “But the most severe trial was last night’s, in a march from Red Rock to Nepigon, a distance of only seven miles across the ice, yet it took nearly five hours to do it.  After leaving the cars the battalion paraded in line.  A couple of camp fires served to make the darkness visible.  All the men were anxious to start, and when the word was given to march, it was greeted with cheers.  It was impossible to march in fours, therefore an order was given for left turn, quick march.  We turned, obedient to the order, but the march was anything but quick.  Then into the solemn darkness of the pines and hemlock the column slowly moved.  Each side being snow four feet deep, it was almost impossible to keep the track, and a misstep buried the unfortunate individual up to his neck.  Then it began raining, and for three mortal hours there was a continuous down pour.  The lake was reached at last, to the extreme pleasure of the corps.  The wildness of the afternoon and the rain turned the snow into slush, at every step the men sank half a foot.  All attempts to preserve distance were soon abandoned by the men, who clasped hands to prevent falling.  The officers struggled on, arms linked, for the same purpose.  Now and then men would drop in the ranks, the fact only being discovered by those in the rear stumbling over them.  Some actually fell asleep as they marched.  One brave fellow had plodded on without a murmur for three days.  He had been suffering, but through the fear of being left behind in the hospital refrained from making his case known.  He tramped half-way across last night’s march reeling like a drunken man, but nature gave out at last, and with a groan he fell on the snow.  There he lay, the pitiless rain beating on a boyish upturned face, until a passing sleigh stopped behind him.  The driver, flashing his lantern in the upturned face, said he was dead.  ‘Not yet, old man,’ was the reply of the youth, as he opened his eyes.  ’I’m not even a candidate for the hospital yet.’”

The following description of the Great Salt Plains, as given by a Globe correspondent, is also worth reproducing:  “The Great Salt Plains open out like broad, dreary marsh or arm of the sea, from which the tide has gone out.  For about thirty-five miles the trail stretches in a north-westerly course across this dismal expanse, and away to the south-west, as far as the eye can reach, nothing save marsh grass, flags, bullrushes, and occasionally clumps of marsh willows can be seen.  North-east of the trail scattering bluffs of stunted grey willows cluster along the horizon, and at one point along the trail, about midway of the plain, is found a small, solitary clump of stoneberry bushes, not more than thirty yards