he had
seen the ice floes and the whales.]

[Footnote 8: Humming birds arrive annually in British Columbia between
April and May, and stay there till the autumn. They winter in the
warmer parts of California.]

From this tiny lake he made his way over lofty mountains to another
lake at no great distance, and from this a small stream called the Bad
River flowed southwards to join a still bigger stream, which Mackenzie
thought might prove to be one of the branches of the mighty Columbia
River that flows out into the Pacific through the State of Oregon. It
really was the Fraser River, and of the upper waters of the Fraser
Mackenzie was the discoverer.[9]

[Footnote 9: The great surveyor and map maker, David Thompson, was the
first white man to reach the upper waters of the _Columbia_ River. The
Fraser River was afterwards followed to its outlet in the Straits of
Georgia (opposite Vancouver Island) by Simon Fraser.]

[Illustration: THE UPPER WATERS OF THE FRASER RIVER]

Their experiences down the little mountain stream which was to take
them into the Fraser nearly ended in complete disaster. "The violence
of the current being so great as to drive the canoe sideways down the
river, and break her by the first bar, I instantly jumped into the
water and the men followed my example; but before we could set her
straight, or stop her, we came to deeper water, so that we were
obliged to re-embark with the utmost precipitation.... We had hardly
regained our situations when we drove against a rock which shattered
the stern of the canoe in such a manner, that it held only by the
gunwales, so that the steersman could no longer keep his place. The
violence of this stroke drove us to the opposite side of the river,
which is but narrow, when the bow met with the same fate as the
stern.... In a few moments, we came across a cascade which broke
several large holes in the bottom of the canoe, and started all the
bars.... The wreck becoming flat on the water, we all jumped out ...
and held fast to the wreck; to which fortunate resolution we owed our
safety, as we should otherwise have been dashed against the rocks by
the force of the water, or driven over the cascades.... At length we
most fortunately arrived in shallow water, and at a small eddy, where
we were enabled to make a stand, from the weight of the canoe resting
on the stones, rather than from any exertions of our exhausted
strength.... The Indians, when they saw our deplorab