usual, induced us
to suppose the river was near. We encamped early having come eight miles.
Our supper consisted of tripe de roche and half a partridge each.

Our progress next day was extremely slow from the difficulty of managing
the canoe in passing over the hills as the breeze was fresh. Peltier, who
had it in charge, having received several severe falls, became impatient
and insisted on leaving his burden as it had already been much injured by
the accidents of this day, and no arguments we could use were sufficient
to prevail on him to continue carrying it. Vaillant was therefore
directed to take it and we proceeded forward. Having found that he got on
very well and was walking even faster than Mr. Hood could follow in his
present debilitated state, I pushed forward to stop the rest of the party
who had got out of sight during the delay which the discussion respecting
the canoe had occasioned. I accidentally passed the body of the men and
followed the tracks of two persons who had separated from the rest until
two P.M. when, not seeing any person, I retraced my steps, and on my way
met Dr. Richardson who had also missed the party whilst he was employed
gathering tripe de roche, and we went back together in search of them. We
found they had halted among some willows where they had picked up some
pieces of skin and a few bones of deer that had been devoured by the
wolves last spring. They had rendered the bones friable by burning and
eaten them as well as the skin; and several of them had added their old
shoes to the repast. Peltier and Vaillant were with them, having left the
canoe which they said was so completely broken by another fall as to be
rendered incapable of repair and entirely useless. The anguish this
intelligence occasioned may be conceived but it is beyond my power to
describe it. Impressed however with the necessity of taking it forward,
even in the state these men represented it to be, we urgently desired
them to fetch it, but they declined going and the strength of the
officers was inadequate to the task. To their infatuated obstinacy on
this occasion a great portion of the melancholy circumstances which
attended our subsequent progress may perhaps be attributed. The men now
seemed to have lost all hope of being preserved and all the arguments we
could use failed in stimulating them to the least exertion. After
consuming the remains of the bones and horns of the deer we resumed our
march, and in the