This we undertook, and with great care were able to get through, to the astonishment of the Indians in the huts we had just passed, who now collected to see us from the top of the rock.

The channel continued thus confined for the space of about half a mile, when the rock ceased.

We passed a single Indian hut at the foot of it, where the river again enlarges to the width of two hundred yards, and at the distance of a mile and a half stopped to view a very bad rapid; this is formed by two rocky islands which divide the channel, the lower and larger of which is in the middle of the river.

The appearance of this place was so unpromising that we unloaded all the most valuable articles, such as guns, ammunition, our papers, etc., and sent them by land, with all the men that could not swim, to the extremity of these rapids.

We then descended with the canoes, two at a time; though the canoes took in some water, we all went through safely; after which we made two miles, stopped in a deep bend of the river toward the right, and camped a little above a large village of twenty-one houses.