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an eddy below: ""Cre Dieu," said Basil Lajeunesse, as he arrived immediately after us; je crois bien que j'ai nagé un demi mille." He had owed his life to his skill as a swimmer, and I determined to take him and the two others on board, and trust to skill and fortune to reach the other end in safety. We placed ourselves on our knees, with short paddles in our hands, the most skilful boatman being in the bow; and again we commenced our rapid descent. We cleared rock after rock, and shot past fall after fall, our little boat seeming to play with the cataract. We became flushed with success, and familiar with the danger, and yielding to the excitement of the occasion, broke forth together into a Canadian boat-song. Singing or rather shouting, we dashed along; and were, I believe, in the midst of the chorus, when the boat struck a concealed rock immediately at the foot of a fall, which whirled her over in an instant. Three of my men could not swim, and my first feeling was to assist them, and save some of our effects; but a sharp concussion or two convinced me that I had not yet saved myself. A few strokes brought me into an eddy, and I landed on a pile of rocks on the left side. Looking round, I saw that Mr. Prenss had gained the shore, on the same side, about twenty yards below, and a little climbing and swimming soon brought him to my side. On the opposite side against the wall lay the boat bottom up; and Lambert was in the act of saving Descouteaux, whom he had grasped by the hair, and who could not swim. "Lâche pas," said he, as I afterwards learned, "lâche pas, cher frère." "Crains pas," was the reply, “je m'en vais mourir avant que de te lâcher." Such

was the reply of courage and generosity in this danger. For a hundred yards below, the current was covered with floating books and boxes, bales of blankets, and scattered articles of clothing; and so strong and boiling was the stream, that even our heavy instruments, which were all in cases, kept on the surface, and the sextant, circle and long black box of the telescope were in view at once. For a moment I felt somewhat disheartened. All our books-almost every record of the journey, our journals and registers of astronomical and barometrical observations-had been lost in a moment. But it was no time to indulge in regrets, and I immediately set about endeavouring to save something from the wreck. Making ourselves understood as well as possible by signs (for nothing could be heard in the roar of waters), we commenced our operations. Of everything on board, the only article that had been saved was my double-barrelled gun, which Descouteaux had caught and clung to with drowning tenacity. The men continued down the river on the right side; Mr. Preuss and myself descended on the side we were on; and Lajeunesse, with a paddle in his hand, jumped on the boat alone and continued down the cañon. was now light, and cleared every bad place with much less difficulty: in a short time he was joined by Lambert, and the search was continued for mout a mile and a half, which was as far as the high, could proceed in the pass. Here the walls following five hundred feet high, and the fraghis strength cks from above had choked the river only seen oc pass but one or two feet above the white foam. Eugh this and the interstices of the know, but we found its way. Favoured beyond

She

our expectations, all our registers had been recovered, with the exception of one of my journals, which contained notes and incidents of travel, topographical descriptions, and a number of scattered astronomical observations; in addition to these we saved the circle; and these with a few blankets constituted everything that had been rescued from the waters." Their dangers by water thus over, they had got others in prospect by land; the story is thus continued:-"The day was running rapidly away, and it was necessary to reach Goat Island, whither the party had proceeded on, before night. In this uncertain country the traveller is so much in the power of chance, that we became somewhat uneasy in regard to them. Should anything have occurred, in the brief interval of our separation, to prevent our rejoining them, our situation would be rather a desperate one. We had not a morsel of provisions- -our arms and ammunition were gone, and we were entirely at the mercy of any straggling party of savages, and not a little in danger of starvation. We therefore set out at once. Climbing out of the cañon, we found ourselves in a very broken country, where we were not able to recognize any locality. The scenery was extremely picturesque, and notwithstanding our forlorn condition, we were frequently obliged to stop and admire it. At one point of the cañon the red argillaceous sandstone rose in a wall of five hundred feet, surmounted by a stratum of white sandstone; and in an opposite ravine, a column of red sandstone rose, in form like a steeple, about one hundred and fifty feet high. Our progress was not very rapid. We had emerged from the water half naked, and on arriving at the top of the precipice

I found myself with only one moccasin. The fragments of rock made walking painful; and I was frequently obliged to stop and pull out the thorns of the cactus, here the prevailing plant, and with which a few minutes' walk covered the bottom of my foot. We crossed the river repeatedly, sometimes able to ford it, and sometimes swimming, climbed over the ridges of two more cañons, and towards evening reached the cut, which was named the Hot Spring Gate. Leaving this Thermopylæ of the west, in a short walk we reached the red ridge, which has been described as lying just above Goat Island. A shout from the man who first reached the top of the ridge, responded to from below, informed us that our friends were all on the island; and we were soon among them. We found some pieces of buffalo standing round the fire for us, and managed to get some dry clothes among the people. A sudden storm of rain drove us into the best shelter we could find, where we slept soundly, after one of the most fatiguing days I have ever experienced." Amid such scenes and their accompanying difficulties and dangers, and by men so competent to overcome them, was the western part of the interior of North America discovered.

CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY IN THE INTERIOR.

THE fur traders of Canada having, through their dissensions with the Hudson's Bay Company, and, indeed, among themselves, previous to the establishment of the North-Western Company, reduced the number of fur-bearing animals in the immediate neighbourhood of the great lakes, pushed their operations in all directions into the Indian country, and having established forts on the Sascatchewan, Athabasca, and Red Rivers, as well as the head waters of the Mississippi, stretched northward to the Lake of the Hills, where they erected the trading fort, since then so well known as the starting point of expeditions for discovery of the interior and north coast of the American continent, by the name of Fort Chippewayan.

Alexander Mackenzie, who had risen to the station of a partner in that Company, and was even among them remarkable for his energy and activity both of body and mind, having, with others of the leading partners, imbibed very extensive views of the commercial importance and capabilities of Canada, and considering that the discovery of a passage by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific would contribute greatly to open and enlarge it, undertook the task of exploring the country to the north of the extreme point occupied by the fur traders. This he calculated on doing by means of