On the following day, October 21st, they made but a short distance when they came to a dangerous strait, where the river was compressed for nearly half a mile between perpendicular rocks, reducing it to the width of twenty yards, and increasing its violence.  Here they were obliged to pass the canoes down cautiously by a line from the impending banks.  This consumed a great part of a day; and after they had reembarked they were soon again impeded by rapids, when they had to unload their canoes and carry them and their cargoes for some distance by land.  It is at these places, called “portages,” that the Canadian voyageur exhibits his most valuable qualities; carrying heavy burdens, and toiling to and fro, on land and in the water, over rocks and precipices, among brakes and brambles, not only without a murmur, but with the greatest cheerfulness and alacrity, joking and laughing and singing scraps of old French ditties.

The spirits of the party, however, which had been elated on first varying their journeying from land to water, had now lost some of their buoyancy.  Everything ahead was wrapped in uncertainty.  They knew nothing of the river on which they were floating.  It had never been navigated by a white man, nor could they meet with an Indian to give them any information concerning it.  It kept on its course through a vast wilderness of silent and apparently uninhabited mountains, without a savage wigwam upon its banks, or bark upon its waters.  The difficulties and perils they had already passed made them apprehend others before them, that might effectually bar their progress.  As they glided onward, however, they regained heart and hope.  The current continued to be strong; but it was steady, and though they met with frequent rapids, none of them were bad.  Mountains were constantly to be seen in different directions, but sometimes the swift river glided through prairies, and was bordered by small cotton-wood trees and willows.  These prairies at certain seasons are ranged by migratory herds of the wide-wandering buffalo, the tracks of which, though not of recent date, were frequently to be seen.  Here, too, were to be found the prickly pear or Indian fig, a plant which loves a more southern climate.  On the land were large flights of magpies and American robins; whole fleets of ducks and geese navigated the river, or flew off in long streaming files at the approach of the canoes; while the frequent establishments of the painstaking and quiet-loving beaver showed that the solitude of these waters was rarely disturbed, even by the all-pervading savage.