In consequence of the accident yesterday evening we were detained a considerable time this morning until the boats were repaired, when we set out and, after ascending a strong rapid, arrived at the portage by John Moore’s Island.  Here the river rushes with irresistible force through the channels formed by two rocky islands; and we learned that last year a poor man, in hauling a boat up one of these channels, was, by the breaking of the line, precipitated into the stream and hurried down the cascade with such rapidity that all efforts to save him were ineffectual.  His body was afterwards found and interred near the spot.

The Weepinapannis is composed of several branches which separate and unite again and again, intersecting the country in a great variety of directions.

Windy lake.

We pursued the principal channel and, having passed the Crooked Spout with several inferior rapids and crossed a small piece of water named Windy Lake, we entered a smooth deep stream about three hundred yards wide which has got the absurd appellation of the Rabbit Ground.  The marshy banks of this river are skirted by low barren rocks behind which there are some groups of stunted trees.  As we advanced the country, becoming flatter, gradually opened to our view and we at length arrived at a shallow, reedy lake, the direct course through which leads to the Hill Portage.  This route has however of late years been disused and we therefore turned towards the north and, crossing a small arm of the lake, arrived at Hill Gates by sunset; having come this day eleven miles.

October 1.

Hill Gates is the name imposed on a romantic defile whose rocky walls, rising perpendicularly to the height of sixty or eighty feet, hem in the stream for three-quarters of a mile, in many places so narrowly that there is a want of room to ply the oars.  In passing through this chasm we were naturally led to contemplate the mighty but probably slow and gradual effects of the water in wearing down such vast masses of rock; but in the midst of our speculations the attention was excited anew to a grand and picturesque rapid which, surrounded by the most wild and majestic scenery, terminated the defile.  The brown fishing-eagle had built its nest on one of the projecting cliffs.

White fall lake and river.

In the course of the day we surmounted this and another dangerous portage called the Upper and Lower Hill Gate Portages, crossed a small sheet of water, termed the White Fall Lake and, entering the river of the same name, arrived at the White Fall about an hour after sunset, having come fourteen miles on a South-West course.