slands. The banks were luxuriantly clothed with pines, poplars,
and birch trees, of the largest size: but the different shades of green
were undistinguishable at a distance, and the glow of autumnal colours
was wanting to render the variety beautiful.

Having crossed two portages at the different extremities of the Island
Lake, we ran under sail through two extensive sheets of water, called
the Heron and Pelican Lakes; the former of which is fifteen miles in
length, and the latter five; but its extent to the southward has not
been explored. An intricate channel, with four small portages,
conducted us to the Woody Lake. Its borders were, indeed, walls of
pines, hiding the face of steep and high rocks; and we wandered in
search of a landing-place till ten P.M., when we were forced to take
shelter from an impending storm, on a small island where we wedged
ourselves between the trees. But though we secured the canoes, we
incurred a personal evil of much greater magnitude, in the torments
inflicted by the musquitoes, a plague which had grown upon us since our
departure from Cumberland House, and which infested us during the whole
summer; we found no relief from their attacks by exposing ourselves to
the utmost violence of the wind and rain. Our last resource was to
plunge ourselves in the water, and from this uncomfortable situation we
gladly escaped at day-light, and hoisted our sails.

The Woody Lake is thirteen miles in length, and a small grassy channel
at its north-western extremity, leads to the Frog Portage, the source of
the waters descending by Beaver Lake to the Saskatchawan. The distance
to the Missinippi, or Churchill River, is only three hundred and eighty
yards; and as its course crosses the height nearly at right angles to
the direction of the Great River, it would be superfluous to compute
the elevation at this place. The portage is in latitude 55 deg. 26' 0" N.,
and longitude 103 deg. 34' 50" W. Its name, according to Sir Alexander
Mackenzie, is derived from the Crees having left suspended a stretched
frog's skin, in derision of the Northern Indian mode of dressing the
beaver.

The part of the Missinippi, in which we embarked, we should have
mistaken for a lake, had it not been for the rapidity of the current
against which we made our way. At four P.M. we passed a long portage
occasioned by a ledge of rocks, three hundred yards in length, over
which the river falls seven or eight feet. After crossing anoth