ained the consistency, and in many
instances the legibility, of a smoked herring, but as they had before
presented a very fishy appearance that was not of much consequence.

This day was bright and fine. Notwithstanding the delay caused by drying
the mails, as well as distributing them to the several brigades which we
overhauled and passed, we ran a distance of forty miles and made no less
than fifteen portages. The carrying or portaging power of the Indian is
very remarkable. A young boy will trot away under a load which would
stagger a strong European unaccustomed to such labour. The portages and
the falls which they avoid bear names which seem strange and un meaning
but which have their origin in some long-forgotten incident connected
with the early history of the fur trade or of Indian war. Thus the great
Slave Fall tells by its name the fate of two Sioux captives taken in some
foray by the Ojibbeway; lashed together in a canoe, they were the only
men who ever ran the Great Chute. The rocks around were black with the
figures of the Ojibbeways, whose wild triumphant yells were hushed by the
roar of the cataract; but the torture was a short one; the mighty rush,
the wild leap, and the happy hunting-ground, where even Ojibbeways cease
from troubling and Sioux warriors are at rest, had been reached. In
Mackenzie's journal the fall called Galet-du-Bonnet is said to have been
named by the Canadian voyageurs, from the fact that the Indians were in
the habit of crowning the highest rock above the portage with wreaths of
flowers and branches of trees. The Grand Portage, which is three quarters
of a mile in length, is the great test of the strength of the Indian and
half-breed; but, if Mackenzie speaks correctly, the voyageur has much
degenerated since the early days of the fur trade, for he writes that
seven pieces, weighing each ninety pounds, were carried over the Grand
Portage by an Indian in one trip, 630 pounds borne three quarters of a mile
by one man--the loads look big enough still, but 250 pounds is considered
excessive now. These loads are carried in a manner which allows the whole
strength of the body to be put into the work. A broad leather strap is
placed round the forehead, the ends of the strap passing back over the
shoulders support the pieces which, thus carried, lie along-the spine
from the small of the back to the crown of the head. When fully loaded,
the voyageur stands with his body bent forward, and with