alled the Pin Portage is a rapid, about ten yards in
length, with a descent of ten or twelve feet, and beset with rocks.
Light canoes sometimes venture down this fatal gulf, to avoid the
portage, unappalled by the warning crosses which overhang the brink, the
mournful records of former failures.

The Hudson's Bay Company's people whom we passed on the 23rd, going to
the rock house with their furs, were badly provided with food, of which
we saw distressing proofs at every portage behind them. They had
stripped the birch trees of their rind to procure the soft pulpy vessels
in contact with the wood, which are sweet, but very insufficient to
satisfy a craving appetite.

The lake to the westward of the Pin Portage, is called Sandfly Lake; it
is seven miles long; and a wide channel connects it with the Serpent
Lake, the extent of which to the southward we could not discern. There
is nothing remarkable in this chain of lakes, except their shapes, being
rocky basins filled by the waters of the Missinippi, insulating the
massy eminences, and meandering with almost imperceptible current
between them. From the Serpent to the Sandy Lake, it is again confined
in a narrow space by the approach of its winding banks, and on the 26th
we were some hours employed in traversing a series of shallow rapids,
where it was necessary to lighten the canoes. Having missed the path
through the woods, we walked two miles in the water upon sharp stones,
from which some of us were incessantly slipping into deep holes, and
floundering in vain for footing at the bottom; a scene highly diverting,
notwithstanding our fatigue. We were detained in Sandy Lake, till one
P.M., by a strong gale, when the wind becoming moderate we crossed five
miles to the mouth of the river, and at four P.M. left the main branch
of it, and entered a little rivulet called the Grassy River, running
through an extensive reedy swamp. It is the nest of innumerable ducks,
which rear their young, among the long rushes, in security from beasts
of prey. At sunset we encamped on the banks of the main branch.

At three A.M. June 28th, we embarked in a thick fog occasioned by a fall
of the temperature of the air ten degrees below that of the water.
Having crossed Knee Lake, which is nine miles in length, and a portage
at its western extremity, we entered Primeau Lake, with a strong and
favourable wind, by the aid of which we ran nineteen miles through it,
and encamped at the river's mou