o drift
quickly down into the mass of breakers. The men were all huddled together
in the bottom of the boat, and for a moment or two nothing could be done.
"Out with the sweeps!" I roared. All was confusion; the long sweeps got
foul of each other, and for a second every thing went wrong. At last
three sweeps were got to work, but they could do nothing against such a
sea. We were close to the rocks, so close that one began to make
preparations for doing something--one didn't well know what--when we
should strike. Two more oars were out, and for an instant we hung in
suspense as to the result. How they did pull! it was the old paddle-work
forcing the rapid again; and it told; in spite of wave and wind, we were
round the point, but it was only by a shade. An hour later we were
running through a vast expanse of marsh and reeds into the mouth of Rainy
River; the Lake of the Woods was passed, and now before me Lay eighty
miles of the Riviere-de-la-Pluie.

A friend of mine once, describing the scenery of the Falls of the Cauvery
in India, wrote that "below the falls there was an island round which
there was water on every side:" this mode of description, so very true
and yet so very simple in its character, may fairly-be applied to Rainy
River; one may safely say that it is a river, and that it has banks on
Either side of it; if one adds that the banks are rich, fertile, and well
wooded, the description will be complete--such was the river up which I
now steered to meet the Expedition. The Expedition, where was it? An
Indian whom we met on the lake knew nothing about it; perhaps on the
river we should hear some tidings. About five miles from the mouth of
Rainy River there was a small out-station of the Hudson Bay Company kept
by a man named Morrisseau, a brother of my boatman. As we approached this
little post it was announced to us by an Indian that Morrisseau had that
morning lost a child. It was a place so wretched looking that its name
of Hungery Hall seemed well adapted to it.

When the boat touched the shore the father of the dead child came out of
the hut, and shook hands with every one in solemn silence; when he came
to his brother he kissed him, and the brother in his turn went up the
bank and kissed a number of Indian women who were standing round; there
was not a word spoken by any one; after awhile they all went into the
hut in which the little body lay, and remained some time inside. In its
way, I don't ever reco