tforward in his manners, and fully
disposed, not only to say, but to do everything to facilitate the
object. He put no veto on any request of this kind, holding the smiths
and mechanics of the government amenable to comply with any order. He
was not a man, indeed, who dealt in hems and haws--did not require to
sleep upon a simple question--and is not a person whose course is to be
stopped, as many little big men are, by two straws crossed.

At length the canoes, which were our principal cause of delay, arrived
from Lake Huron, where they were constructed, and all things were ready
for our embarkation. It was the 24th of May when we set out. A small
detachment of infantry had been ordered to form a part of the
expedition, under Lieutenant Aeneas Mackay. Eight or ten Chippewa and
Ottowa Indians were taken in a separate canoe, as hunters, and gave
picturesqueness to the brigade by their costume. There were ten Canadian
voyagers of the north-west stamp. Professor Douglass and myself were the
only persons to whom separate classes of scientific duties were
assigned. A secretary and some assistants made the governor's mess
consist of nine persons. Altogether, we numbered, including guides and
interpreters, about forty persons; a truly formidable number of mouths
to feed in the "waste howling wilderness."

Having kept and published a journal of the daily incidents of the
expedition, I refer to it for details.[8] To plunge into the wilderness
is truly to take one's life in his hand. But nobody thought of this. The
enterprise was of a kind to produce exhilaration. The route lay up the
Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, and around the southern shores of Lakes
Huron and Superior to Fond du Lac. Thence up the St. Louis River in its
rugged passage through the Cabotian Mountains to the Savannah summit
which divides the great lakes from the Mississippi Valley. The latter
was entered through the _Comtaguma_ or Sandy Lake River. From this
point the source of the Mississippi was sought up rapids and falls, and
through lakes and savannahs, in which the channel winds. We passed the
inlet of the Leech Lake, which was fixed upon by Lieutenant Pike as its
probable source, and traced it through Little Lake Winnipeg to the inlet
of Turtle Lake in upper Red Cedar, or Cass Lake, in north lat. 47 deg.. On
reaching this point, the waters were found unfavorable to proceeding
higher. The river was then descended to the falls of St. Anthony, St.
Peters, an