We were carried along with extraordinary rapidity, shooting over large stones upon which a single stroke would have been destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger of breaking them, from the want of the long poles which lie along their bottoms and equalise their cargoes, as they plunged very much, and on one occasion the first canoe was almost filled with the waves.

But there was no receding after we had once launched into the stream, and our safety depended on the skill and dexterity of the bowmen and steersmen.

The banks of the river here are rocky and the scenery beautiful, consisting of gentle elevations and dales wooded to the edge of the stream and flanked on both sides at the distance of three or four miles by a range of round-backed barren hills, upwards of six hundred feet high.

At the foot of the rapids the high lands recede to a greater distance and the river flows with a more gentle current in a wider channel through a level and open country consisting of alluvial sand.

In one place the passage was blocked up by drift ice still deeply covered with snow.