immigrant, or the
waiter-on-fortune this was hard work. Many were the oaths of the
officers and the complaints and objections of the men when they were
required to grapple with the foaming cascades, the fearful rapids and
the difficult portages of Hill River. Mossy Portage being now past the
landing on a rocky island at the head of the river showed that the first
"Hill Difficulty" had been overcome.

Swampy lake for ten miles gives a comparative rest to the toiling crews,
but at the end of it a short portage passed takes the beleagured party
into the mouth of the Jack Tent River. Day after day with sound sleep
when the mosquitoes would permit, the unwilling voyageurs continued
their journey. Ten portages have to be faced and overcome as the brigade
ascends the rapid Jack Tent River, covering a stretch of seventy miles.
The party now find themselves on the surface of Knee Lake, a
considerable sheet of water, but a comparative rest after the trials of
Jack Tent River. The lake is fifty-six miles long and at times widens to
ten miles across.

But there is trouble just ahead.

The travellers have now come to the celebrated Fall Portage. It is short
but deterrent. The height and ruggedness of the rocks over which cargo
and boats have to be dragged are unusually forbidding. The only
consolation to the contemplative soul, who does not have to portage, is
that "The stream is turbulent and unfriendly in the extreme, but in
romantic variety, and in natural beauty nothing can exceed this
picture." High rocks are seen, beetling over the rapids like towers, and
are rent into the most diversified forms, gay with various colored
masses, or shaded by overhanging hills--now there is a tranquil pool
lying like a sheet of silver--now the dash and foam of a cataract--these
are but parts of this picturesque and striking scene.

But Fall Portage was only a culmination, in this fiercely rushing Trout
River, for above it a dozen rapids are to be passed with toilsome
energy. After this the party is rewarded with beautiful islets, and the
lake for a length of thirty-five miles lies in a fertile tract of
country. It was formerly appropriately called Holy Lake, and as a summit
lake suggests to the traveller abiding restfulness. To the traders on
their route whether passing up or down the water courses, it was always
so. After the long and tedious voyaging it was their Elysium. Not only
are the sweet surroundings of the lake most charming, but