At times waterfalls require to be circuited with great effort.  A high mountain or elevated table-land seen from this river shows the rough country of which these cascades and rapids are the proof.  Here are the White-Mud Falls and other smaller cataracts.  To the expert voyageur such a river has no terrors, but to the raw-hand the management of such boats is a most toilsome work.  The birch-bark canoe is a mere trifle on the portage, but the heavy York boat capable of carrying three or four tons is a clumsy lugger.  The cargo must be moved, the non-effectives such as the women and children and the old men must trudge the weary path, varying from a few hundred yards to several miles along a rocky, steep and rugged way.  When the portage is made the whole force of boatmen and able-bodied passengers are required to stand by each boat, pull it out of the water, and then skid or drag or cajole it along till it is thrust into its native element again.  To the willing crofter or Orkney boatmen this was not a great task, but to the Glasgow immigrant, or the waiter-on-fortune this was hard work.  Many were the oaths of the officers and the complaints and objections of the men when they were required to grapple with the foaming cascades, the fearful rapids and the difficult portages of Hill River.  Mossy Portage being now past the landing on a rocky island at the head of the river showed that the first “Hill Difficulty” had been overcome.

Swampy lake for ten miles gives a comparative rest to the toiling crews, but at the end of it a short portage passed takes the beleagured party into the mouth of the Jack Tent River.  Day after day with sound sleep when the mosquitoes would permit, the unwilling voyageurs continued their journey.  Ten portages have to be faced and overcome as the brigade ascends the rapid Jack Tent River, covering a stretch of seventy miles.  The party now find themselves on the surface of Knee Lake, a considerable sheet of water, but a comparative rest after the trials of Jack Tent River.  The lake is fifty-six miles long and at times widens to ten miles across.

But there is trouble just ahead.

The travellers have now come to the celebrated Fall Portage.  It is short but deterrent.  The height and ruggedness of the rocks over which cargo and boats have to be dragged are unusually forbidding.  The only consolation to the contemplative soul, who does not have to portage, is that “The stream is turbulent and unfriendly in the extreme, but in romantic variety, and in natural beauty nothing can exceed this picture.”  High rocks are seen, beetling over the rapids like towers, and are rent into the most diversified forms, gay with various colored masses, or shaded by overhanging hills—­now there is a tranquil pool lying like a sheet of silver—­now the dash and foam of a cataract—­these are but parts of this picturesque and striking scene.