1832, July 14th.  I found the outlet of Itasca Lake to be about twelve feet wide, and some twelve to fourteen inches deep.  The water is of crystal purity, and the current very rapid.  We were urged along with great velocity.  It required incessant vigilance on the part of the men to prevent our frail vessels from being dashed against boulders.  For about twelve miles the channel was not only narrow, but exceedingly crooked.  Often, where the water was most deep and rapid, it did not appear to exceed ten feet in width.  Trees which had fallen from the banks required, sometimes, to be cut away to allow the canoes to pass, and it required unceasing vigilance to avoid piles of drifted wood or boulders.  As we were borne along in vessels of bark, not more than one-eighth of an inch thick, a failure to fend off, or hit the proper guiding point, in any one place, would have been fraught with instant destruction.  And we sat in a perfect excitement during this distance.  The stream then deployed, for a distance of some eight miles, into a savannah or plain, with narrow grassy borders in which its width was doubled, its depth decreased, and the current less furious.  We went through these windings with more assurance and composure.  It was one of the minor plateaux in which this stream descends.  The channel then narrowed and deepened itself for another plunge, and soon brought us to the top of the Kabika Palls.  This pass, as the name imports, is a cascade over rocks.  The river is pent up, between opposing trap rock, which are not over ten feet apart.  Its depth is about four feet, and velocity perfectly furious.  It is not impossible to descend it, as there is no abrupt pitch, but such a trial would seem next to madness.  We made a portage with our canoes of about a quarter of a mile across a peninsula, and embarked again at the foot of the falls, where the stream again expands to more than double its former width, and the scenery assumes a milder aspect.  It is another plateau.

Daylight had departed when we encamped on a high sandy bank on the left shore.  We were perfectly exhausted with labor, and the thrilling excitement of the day.  It seemed, while flying through its furious passes, as if this stream was impatient for its development, and, like an unrestrained youth, was bent on overthrowing every obstacle, on the instant, that opposed its advance and expansion.  A war horse could not have been more impatient to rush on to his destiny.

We were in motion again in our canoes at five o’clock the next morning.  At an early hour my Indian guide landed to fire at some deer.  He could not, however, get close enough to make an effectual shot.  Before the animals were, however, out of range, he loaded, without wadding, and fired again, but also without effect.  After passing a third plateau through which the river winds, with grassy borders, we found it once more to contract for another descent, which we made without leaving our canoes, not, however,