housand feet in height. In the course of the day we came
to the most northerly poplars, where the foliage had now assumed the
yellow autumnal hue. [Sidenote: Saturday, 2nd.] The gale continued with
strong squalls on the 2nd, and we advanced rapidly under double-reefed
sails, though the course of the river was very winding. The temperature
of the air varied from 41 degrees to 35 degrees. [Sidenote: Sunday,
3rd.] On the third we had calm weather, and still keeping the western
land aboard, we were led into a river which we had not discovered in our
descent. The course of this river, was, for a time, parallel to our
route, and we took it at first for one of the channels of the Mackenzie;
but, in the afternoon, we saw a mountain to the eastward, and
ascertained that we were to the Southward of Point Separation. We,
therefore, began to descend the river again, and encamped shortly after
sunset. Just after it became dark, voices were heard on the opposite
side of the river, to which we replied, and soon afterwards, three
Indians were observed crossing towards us in canoes. They approached
cautiously, but on being invited to land, they did so, though one of
them was so great a cripple as to require being carried from the canoe
to the fire-side. The alarm these poor people had felt, was soon
dissipated by kind treatment. They were armed with bows and arrows only,
and clothed in hare skins and leather. Their trowsers were similar to
those worn by the lower Loucheux, to which tribe they, probably,
belonged. We could communicate with them only by signs, except by using
a few words of Chipewyan, which one of them appeared to understand. We
collected from them that they knew of Fort Good Hope, but none of them
seemed to have visited it, as they had not a single article of European
manufacture about their persons. They delineated on a stone the course
of the Mackenzie, and of the river we had newly discovered, which
appears to flow from the Rocky Mountains, and to break through the same
ridge of hill that the Mackenzie does at the Narrows. It is probable,
that it was to this river the Loucheux alluded, when they told Sir
Alexander Mackenzie, opposite the present site of Fort Good Hope, that
there was a river which conducted them to the sea in five days. I have
distinguished this river by the name of Peel, in honour of His Majesty's
Secretary of State for the Home Department. It is from a quarter to half
a mile wide, and its banks are cl