, and
also possessed of powerful sweeps, which were worked by the men in
standing positions, the rise of the oar after each stroke making the
oarsman sink back upon the thwarts only to resume again his upright
attitude for the next dip of the heavy sweep.

This is the regular Hudson Bay Mackinaw boat, used for the carrying
trade of the great Fur Company on every river from the Bay of Hudson to
the Polar Ocean. It looks a big, heavy, lumbering affair, but it can sail
well before a wind, and will do good work with the oars too.

That portion of the Lake of the Woods through which we now steered our
way was a perfect maze and network of island and narrow channel; a light
breeze from the north favoured us, and we passed gently along the rocky
islet shores through unruffled water. In all directions there opened out
innumerable channels, some narrow and winding, others straight and open,
but all lying'-between shores clothed with a rich and luxuriant
vegetation; shores that curved and twisted into mimic bays and tiny
promontories, that rose in rocky masses abruptly from the water, that
sloped down to meet the lake in gently swelling undulations, that seemed,
in fine, to present in the compass of a single glance every varying
feature of island scenery. Looking through these rich labyrinths of tree
and moss-covered rock, it was difficult to imagine that winter could ever
-stamp its frozen image upon such a soft summer scene. The air was balmy
with the scented things which grow profusely upon the islands; the water
was warm, almost tepid, and yet despite of this the winter frost would
cover the lake with five feet of ice, and the thick brushwood of the
islands would lie hidden during many months beneath great depths of snow.

As we glided along through this beautiful scene the men kept a sharp
look-out for the suspicious craft whose presence had caused such alarm at
the Portage-du-Rat. We saw no trace of man or canoe, and nothing broke
the stillness of the evening except the splash of a sturgeon in the
lonely bays. About sunset we put ashore upon a large rock for supper.
While it was being prepared I tried to count the islands around. From a
projecting point I could see island upon island to the number of over a
hundred--the wild cherry, the plum, the wild rose, the raspberry,
intermixed with ferns and mosses in vast variety, covered every spot
around me, and from rock and crevice the pine and the poplar hung their
branches ov