line ahead, tugging on it, while Cary was doing his best to keep the boat off the rocks.  At the margin of the swift unbroken current there were strong eddies, and in hauling the boat around a bend her bow was pushed into one, her slight keel momentarily preventing her from heading up stream again, and the rush of the water bore her under.  At the same time Cary was carried from his footing and just managed to grasp the line as he came up and escape being borne down the stream.  When things were collected and an inventory taken of the loss, it was found to include about one-fourth of the provisions, the barometer and chronometer rendered useless and practically lost, measuring chain, cooking utensils, rifles with much of the ammunition, axe and small stores, such as salt, sugar, coffee, etc.  The loss was a severe one, and arose from failure to fasten the stores into the boats before starting, as had been ordered.  The time given the party for the trip was so short, the distance so uncertain, and the things they desired to have an opportunity to do on the return that would require comparative leisure were so many, that they begrudged the few minutes necessary to properly lash the loads into the boats, each time they broke camp; and delay and disaster were the results.  As the day was nearly spent, camp was made but about a mile from the last, and time used in repairing damages.  A very ingenious baker for bread was contrived by Cole from an empty flour tin, a new paddle made to replace the one lost, and a redistribution of the baggage remaining effected.

In the following five days sixty-six miles were made with a few short carries, some rowing and a good deal of hard tracking.  Having passed the Mininipi river and rapids, the latter being the worst on the river, the bank furnishing almost no foothold for tracking the Mauni rapids were reached and finally at 5 P.M., Aug. 6th, the party emerged into Lake Waminikapo.  As Cary’s journal puts it, here the party “first indulged in hilarity.”  The hardest part of the work was over and had been done in much less time than had been expected.  According to all accounts the falls should be found only thirty miles beyond the head of the lake, which is forty miles long and good rowing water, and about three weeks time yet remained before they were due at Rigolette.  Added to this a perfect summer afternoon, comparatively smooth water, running around the base of a magnificent cliff and opening out through a gorge with precipitous sides, showing a beautiful vista of lake and mountain, with the knowledge of rapids behind and the object of the trip but a short way ahead and easy travelling most of that way, and we may readily understand why these tired and travel worn voyagers felt hilarious.  Cary says of the scene:  “As we gradually worked out of the swift water the terraces of sand and stones were seen to give way and the ridges beyond to approach one another and to erect themselves, until at the lake’s mouth we entered a grand portal between cliffs on either hand towering for hundreds of feet straight into the air.  And looking beyond and between the reaches of the lake was seen a ribbon of water lying between steep sided ridges, over the face of which, as we pulled along, mountain streams came pouring.”