, where there was a ripple,
the sounding lead struck against a flat bed of stone in nine feet water.
Having proceeded about ten miles in this channel, we entered a branch
flowing to the eastward, with the view of tracing the course of the main
land. Mackenzie, on his return from the sea by this route, observed many
trees having their upper branches lopped off by the Esquimaux, and we
saw several such trees in the course of the day. The lands are low and
marshy, and inclose small lakes which are skirted by willows. The
summits of the banks are loaded with drift-timber, showing that they are
all inundated by the spring floods, except a few sandy ridges which
bound the principal channels, and which are clothed with well-grown
white spruce trees. Our voyage amongst these uninteresting flats was
greatly enlivened by the busy flight and cheerful twittering of the
sand-martins, which had scooped out thousands of nests in the banks of
the river, and we witnessed with pleasure their activity in thinning the
ranks of our most tormenting foes the musquitoes. When our precursor,
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, passed through these channels on the 10th of
July, 1789, they were bounded by walls of ice veined with black earth,
but the present season was so much milder, that the surface of the banks
was every where thawed.

An hour before noon we put ashore to cook our breakfast, near a clump of
spruce trees, where several fires had recently been made by a party
which had left many foot-prints on the sand; probably a horde of
Esquimaux, on their return from trading with the Indians at the Narrows.
A thunder storm that obscured the sky, prevented Mr. Kendall from
ascertaining the latitude at noon, which was the hour we chose for
breakfast throughout the voyage, in order to economize time, as it was
necessary to land to obtain the meridian observation of the sun. In the
afternoon we continued to descend the same channel, which has a smooth
and moderately rapid current, and a general depth of two or three
fathoms. At four P.M. we obtained a view of a ridge of land to the
eastward, which we have since learned is named by the natives the
Rein-Deer Hills, and at seven encamped near two conical hills of
limestone, about two hundred feet high, and clothed with trees to their
tops. The length of the day's voyage was forty-two miles. We selected a
sandy bank, covered with willows sixteen feet high, for our encamping
place; and here again we found that