assed through scenery the most beautiful Mackenzie had ever
beheld. He describes it as follows:--

"The ground rises at intervals to a considerable height, and
stretching inwards to a considerable distance: at every interval or
pause in the rise, there is a very gently ascending space or lawn,
which is alternate with abrupt precipices to the summit of the whole,
or at least as far as the eye could distinguish. This magnificent
theatre of nature has all the decorations which the trees and animals
of the country can afford it: groves of poplars in every shape vary
the scene; and their intervals are enlivened with vast herds of elks
and buffaloes: the former choosing the steeps and uplands and the
latter preferring the plains. At this time the buffaloes were attended
with their young ones, who were striking about them; and it appeared
that the elks would soon exhibit the same enlivening circumstance. The
whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees that bear a
blossom were advancing fast to that delightful appearance, and the
velvet rind of their branches reflecting the oblique rays of a rising
or setting sun, added a splendid gaiety to the scene which no
expressions of mine are qualified to describe."

[Footnote 4: Alexander Mackay long afterwards left the service of the
North-west Company, and was killed by savages on the Alaska coast,
near Nutka Sound.]

Of course, as they neared the Rocky Mountains the navigation of the
Peace River became more and more difficult. At last they left the
river to find their way across the mountains till they should reach
the headwaters of a stream flowing towards the Pacific Ocean.
Sometimes they only accomplished three miles a day, having to carry
all their goods and their canoe. The mountainous country was covered
with splendid forests of spruce, pine, cypress, poplar, birch, willow,
and many other kinds of trees, with an undergrowth of gooseberries,
currants, and briar roses. The travellers generally followed paths
made by the elk,[5] just as in the dense forests of Africa the way
sometimes is cleared for human travellers by the elephant. Every now
and again they resumed their journey on the river between the falls
and cascades. The mountains seemed to be a solid mass of limestone, in
some places without any covering of foliage.

[Footnote 5: For the word "elk" Mackenzie uses "moose deer". "Elk" in
the Canadian Dominion is misapplied to the great Wapiti red deer.]

"In