d
their beds afloat. Two men who had gone to sleep on a rick of hay found
themselves next morning drifting with the current some three miles below
the spot where they had lain down. Others, like old Liz, had been
carried off bodily in their huts. Not a few had been obliged to betake
themselves to the housetops until help came. Some there were who took
to swimming, and saved themselves by clinging to the branches of trees;
yet, strange to say, during the whole course of that flood only one man
lost his life. (See Note 1.)

It was very different, however, with regard to the lower animals. When
at its height the water spread out on each side of the river to a
distance of six miles, and about fourteen miles of its length, so that
not only were many horses, cattle, pigs, and poultry drowned in the
general stampede, but the pretty little ground squirrels were driven out
of their holes, and along with rats, mice, snakes, and insects, perished
in thousands. Even the frogs discovered that too much of a good thing
is bad, for they found no rest for the soles of their feet, except
floating logs, planks, and stray pieces of furniture, on which many of
them were seen by our voyagers gazing contemplatively at the situation.

Everywhere houses and barns were seen floating about, their owners gone,
but with dogs and cats in the doorways and windows, and poultry on the
roofs; and the barking, mewing, and cackling of these, with the
squealing of sundry pigs, tended to increase the general desolation.
Such of the contents of these houses as had been left behind in the
flight were washed out of them, and the waters were sprinkled here and
there with bedsteads, chairs, tables, feather-beds, and other property,
besides the carcasses of dead animals.

At certain points of the river, where there were shallows towards which
the currents set, carts, carioles, boxes, carriages, gigs, fencing, and
property of every description were stranded in large quantities and in
dire confusion, but much of the wreck was swept onward and engulfed in
Lake Winnipeg.

The unfortunate settlers found refuge ultimately, after being driven
from knoll to knoll, on the higher ground of the Assinaboine, on the
Little Mountain, and on a low hill twelve miles from the settlement.

On his way to the Little Mountain Mr Ravenshaw touched at the mission
station. Here the various groups in the garret of the parsonage, the
gallery of the church, and on the stage, w