he chief of one
tribe said that, ten years before, he had gone down to the sea in a
large canoe, and there had met with two large vessels full of white men
who treated him very kindly. These, Mackenzie concluded, must have been
the ships of Captain Cook, an opinion which was strengthened by the
discovery that the chief's canoe was ornamented with sea-otters' teeth,
which bear some resemblance to human teeth, for which they had been
mistaken by the great navigator. At last, on the 20th of July, the
heroic perseverance of Mackenzie met with its reward. On that day he
obtained a canoe, and descending a river, entered an arm of the Pacific!
He did not himself, indeed, deem the object of the expedition attained
until he had battled on for a couple of days longer--in the face of the
opposition of his own men and hostility of the natives--and had obtained
reliable observations which settled beyond all dispute, his exact
position on the globe. But to all intents and purposes he had
accomplished his great object on that day,--namely, the crossing of the
American Wilderness to the Pacific Ocean.

Even in the midst of his triumph this long-enduring man was worried by
petty trials, for one of the Indian guides took it into his head to
desert. As he was the son of a chief, and, it was to be feared, might
prejudice the natives against them, Reuben Guff was directed to pursue
him. That worthy took with him Swiftarrow, and exerting his long sinewy
legs to the utmost, soon overtook the fugitive and brought him back.
But it was no part of Mackenzie's plan to tyrannise over men. He
received the deserter kindly, gave him a pair of moccasins, some
provisions, a silk handkerchief, and some good advice, and then sent him
back to his friends. The other Indian who remained with them succeeded
about the same time in killing a large porcupine, which was very
acceptable to all--especially to its captor, who ate so largely of it as
to be obliged to undergo a prolonged period of repose in order to sleep
it off.

At length, being in a state of semi-starvation, with a leaky canoe, and
unfriendly natives around, Mackenzie took a last observation, which gave
52 degrees 20 minutes 48 second North latitude and 128 degrres 2 minutes
West longitude.

Then he turned his face eastward. Before quitting the coast, however, a
smooth rock was selected and thereon was written, in large letters,
with a mixture of melted grease and vermilion, this brief