of pork. Then we put out for
the day's work on the river. How bleak and wretched it all was! After a
while we found it was impossible to make head against the storm of wind
and rain which swept the water, and we had to put back to the shelter of
our miserable camp. About seven o'clock the wind fell, and we set out
again. Soon the sun came forth drying and warming us all over. All day we
paddled on, passing in succession the grand Chute-a-Jacquot, the Three
Portages-des-Bois, the Slave Falls, and the dangerous rapids of the
Barriere. The Slave Falls! who that has ever beheld that superb rush of
water will forget it? Glorious, glorious Winnipeg! it may be that with
these eyes of mine I shall never see thee again, for thou liest far out
of the track of life, and man mars not thy beauty with ways of civilized
travel; but I shall often see thee in imagination, and thy rocks and thy
waters shall murmur in memory for life.

That night, the 17th of August, we made our camp on a little island close
to the Otter Falls. It came a night of ceaseless rain, and again the
mail-bags underwent a drenching. The old Indian cleared a space in the
dripping vegetation, and made me a rude shelter with branches woven
together; but the rain beat through, and drenched body, bag, and baggage.
And yet how easy it all was, and how sound one slept! simply because one
had to do it; that one consideration is the greatest expounder of the
possible. I could not speak a word to my Indians, but we got on by signs,
and seldom found the want of speech--"ugh, ugh" and "caween," yes and no,
answered for any difficulty. To make a fire and a camp, to boil a kettle
and fry a bit of meat are the home works of the Indian. His life is one
long picnic, and it matters as little to him whether sun or rain, snow or
biting frost, warm, drench, cover, or freeze him, as it does to the
moose or the reindeer that share his forest life and yield him often his
forest fare. Upon examining the letters in-the morning the interior of
the bags presented such a pulpy and generally deplorable appearance that
I was obliged to stop at one of the Seven Portages for the purpose of
drying Her Majesty's mail. With this object we made a large fire, and
placing cross-sticks above proceeded to toast and grill the dripping
papers. The Indians sat around, turning the letters with little sticks as
if they were baking cakes or frying sturgeon. Under their skilful
treatment the pulpy mats soon att