loaded canoes; and the baggage must therefore be transported for a considerable distance over the steep mountains, where it would be impossible to employ horses for the relief of the men.  Even the empty canoes must be let down the rapids by means of cords, and not even in that way without great risk both to the canoes as well as to the men.  At one of these shoals, indeed the rocks rise so perpendicularly from the water as to leave no hope of a passage or even a portage without great labour in removing rocks, and in some instances cutting away the earth.  To surmount these difficulties would exhaust the strength of the party, and what is equally discouraging would waste our time and consume our provisions, of neither of which have we much to spare.  The season is now far advanced, and the Indians tell us we shall shortly have snow:  the salmon too have so far declined that the natives themselves are hastening from the country, and not an animal of any kind larger than a pheasant or a squirrel, and of even these a few only will then be seen in this part of the mountains:  after which we shall be obliged to rely on our own stock of provisions, which will not support us more than ten days.  These circumstances combine to render a passage by water impracticable in our present situation.  To descend the course of the river on horseback is the other alternative, and scarcely a more inviting one.  The river is so deep that there are only a few places where it can be forded, and the rocks approach so near the water as to render it impossible to make a route along the waters’ edge.  In crossing the mountains themselves we should have to encounter, besides their steepness, one barren surface of broken masses of rock, down which in certain seasons the torrents sweep vast quantities of stone into the river.  These rocks are of a whitish brown, and towards the base of a gray colour, and so hard, that on striking them with steel, they yield a fire like flint.  This sombre appearance is in some places scarcely relieved by a single tree, though near the river and on the creeks there is more timber, among which are some tall pine:  several of these might be made into canoes, and by lashing two of them together, one of tolerable size might be formed.

After dinner he continued his route, and at the distance of half a mile passed another creek about five yards wide.  Here his guide informed him that by ascending the creek for some distance he would have a better road, and cut off a considerable bend of the river towards the south.  He therefore pursued a well-beaten Indian track up this creek for about six miles, when leaving the creek to the right he passed over a ridge, and after walking a mile again met the river, where it flows through a meadow of about eighty acres in extent.  This they passed and then ascended a high and steep point of a mountain, from which the guide now pointed out where the river broke through the mountains about twenty miles distant.  Near