ution, through the woods. Their fears however on this occasion
were fortunately groundless.

By noon on the 12th, the boats and their cargoes having been conveyed
across the portage, we embarked and pursued our course. The Saskatchewan
becomes wider above the Grand Rapid and the scenery improves. The banks
are high, composed of white clay and limestone, and their summits are
richly clothed with a variety of firs, poplars, birches and willows. The
current runs with great rapidity and the channel is in many places
intricate and dangerous from broken ridges of rock jutting into the
stream. We pitched our tents at the entrance of Cross Lake, having
advanced only five miles and a half.

CROSS, CEDAR AND PINE ISLAND LAKES.

Cross Lake is extensive, running towards the north-east it is said for
forty miles. We crossed it at a narrow part and, pulling through several
winding channels formed by a group of islands, entered Cedar Lake which,
next to Lake Winnipeg, is the largest sheet of fresh water we had
hitherto seen. Ducks and geese resort hither in immense flocks in the
spring and autumn. These birds are now beginning to go off owing to its
muddy shores having become quite hard through the nightly frosts. At this
place the Aurora Borealis was extremely brilliant in the night, its
coruscations darting at times over the whole sky and assuming various
prismatic tints of which the violet and yellow were predominant.

After pulling, on the 14th, seven miles and a quarter on the lake, a
violent wind drove us for shelter to a small island, or rather a ridge of
rolled stones thrown up by the frequent storms which agitate this lake.
The weather did not moderate the whole day and we were obliged to pass
the night on this exposed spot. The delay however enabled us to obtain
some lunar observations. The wind having subsided we left our resting
place the following morning, crossed the remainder of the lake, and in
the afternoon arrived at Muddy Lake which is very appropriately named as
it consists merely of a few channels winding amongst extensive mudbanks
which are overflowed during the spring floods. We landed at an Indian
tent which contained two numerous families amounting to thirty souls.
These poor creatures were badly clothed and reduced to a miserable
condition by the whooping-cough and measles. At the time of our arrival
they were busy in preparing a sweating-house for the sick. This is a
remedy which they consider, with the a