stream, thickly covered with
vegetation, and teeming with little birds, whose merry voices, warbling
a cheerful welcome to the opening buds, greatly enhanced the pleasures
of the scene.

We soon began to experience great difficulty in tracking the canoe
against the rapid stream that now opposed us. From the steepness of the
banks in some places, and their being clothed with thick willows in
others, it became a slow and fatiguing process for the men to drag us
against the strong current; and sometimes the poor Indians had to cling
like flies against nearly perpendicular cliffs of slippery clay, whilst
at others they tore their way through almost impervious bushes. They
relieved each other by turns every hour at this work, the one steering
the canoe while the other tracked; and they took no rest during the
whole day, except when at breakfast. Indeed, any proposal to do so
would have been received by them with great contempt, as a very improper
and useless waste of time.

When the track happened to be at all passable, I used to get out and
walk, to relieve them a little, as well as to stretch my cramped limbs,
it being almost impossible, when there is any luggage in a small Indian
canoe, to attain a comfortable position.

At sunset we put ashore for the night, on a point covered with a great
number of _lopsticks_. These are tall pine-trees, denuded of their
lower branches, a small tuft being left at the top. They are generally
made to serve as landmarks; and sometimes the _voyageurs_ make them in
honour of gentlemen who happen to be travelling for the first time along
the route--and those trees are chosen which, from their being on
elevated ground, are conspicuous objects. The traveller for whom they
are made is always expected to acknowledge his sense of the honour
conferred upon him by presenting the boat's crew with a pint of grog,
either on the spot or at the first establishment they meet with. He is
then considered as having paid for his footing, and may ever afterwards
pass scot-free.

We soon had our encampment prepared, and the fire blazing: but hundreds
of mosquitoes were, as usual, awaiting our arrival, and we found it
utterly impossible to sup, so fiercely did they attack us. We at last
went to leeward of the fire, and devoured it hastily in the smoke--
preferring to risk being suffocated or smoke-dried to being eaten up
alive! It was certainly amusing to see us rushing into the thick smoke,
bolt