We were plentifully supplied with fish, as well dry as fresh, by these people; they also gathered as many hurtle-berries as we chose, for which we paid with the usual articles of beads, awls, knives, and tin. I purchased a few beaver-skins of them, which, according to their accounts, are not very numerous in this country; and that they do not abound in moose-deer and buffaloes. They were alarmed for some of their young men, who were killing geese higher up the river, and entreated us to do them no harm. About sunset I was under the necessity of shooting one of their dogs, as we could not keep those animals from our baggage. It was in vain that I had remonstrated on this subject, so that I was obliged to commit the act which has been just mentioned. When these people heard the report of the pistol, and saw the dog dead, they were seized with a very general alarm, and the women took their children on their backs and ran into the woods. I ordered the cause of this act of severity to be explained, with the assurance that no injury would be offered to themselves. The woman, however, to whom the dog belonged, was very much affected, and declared that the loss of five children, during the preceding winter, had not affected her so much as the death of this animal. But her grief was not of very long duration; and a few beads, &c., soon assuaged her sorrow. But as they can without difficulty get rid of their affliction, they can with equal ease assume it, and feign sickness if it be necessary with the same versatility. When we arrived this morning, we found the women in tears, from an apprehension that we were come to take them away. To the eye of an European they certainly were objects of disgust; but there were those among my party who observed some hidden charms in these females which rendered them objects of desire, and means were found, I believe, that very soon dissipated their alarms and subdued their coyness.
On the upper part of the beach, liquorice grew in great abundance and it was now in blossom. I pulled up some of the roots, which were large and long; but the natives were ignorant of its qualities, and considered it as a weed of no use or value.
Tuesday, 28.—At four this morning I ordered my people to prepare for our departure; and while they were loading the canoe, I went with the English chief to visit the lodges, but the greater part of their inhabitants had quitted them during the night, and those that remained pretended sickness and refused to rise. When, however, they were convinced that we did not mean to take any of them with us, their sickness abandoned them, and when we had embarked, they came forth from their huts, to desire that we would visit their nets, which were at a small distance up the river, and take all the fish we might find in them. We accordingly availed ourselves of this permission, and took as many as were necessary for our own supply.
We landed shortly after where there were two more lodges, which were full of fish, but without any inhabitants, who were probably with the natives whom we had just left. My Indians, in rummaging these places, found several articles which they proposed to take; I therefore gave beads and awls to be left as the purchase of them; but this act of justice they were not able to comprehend, as the people themselves were not present. I took up a net and left a large knife in the place of it. It was about four fathoms long, and thirty-two meshes in depth; these nets are much more convenient to set in the eddy current than our long ones. This is the place that the Indians call a rapid, though we went up it all the way with the paddle; so that the current could not be so strong here, as in many other parts of the river; indeed, if it were so, the difficulty of towing would be almost insuperable, as in many parts, the rocks, which are of a great height, and rather project over the water, leave no shore between them and the stream. These precipices abound in swallows' nests. The weather was now very sultry, and at eleven we were under the necessity of landing to gum our canoe.
In about an hour we set forward, and at one in the afternoon, went on shore at a fire, which we supposed to have been kindled by the young men, who, as we had been already informed, were hunting geese. Our hunters found their canoe and the fowl they had got, secreted in the woods; and soon after, the people themselves, whom they brought to the water side. Out of two hundred geese, we picked thirty-six which were eatable; the rest were putrid, and emitted a horrid stench. They had been killed some time without having been gutted, and in this state of loathsome rottenness, we have every reason to suppose they are eaten by the natives. We paid for those which we had taken, and departed. At seven in the evening, the weather became cloudy and overcast; at eight we encamped; at nine it began to thunder with great violence; a heavy rain succeeded, accompanied with a hurricane, that blew down our tents, and threatened to carry away the canoe, which had been fastened to some trees with a cod-line. The storm lasted two hours, and deluged us with wet.
Wednesday, 29.—Yesterday the weather was cloudy, and the heat insupportable; and now we could not put on clothes enough to keep us warm. We embarked at a quarter past four with an aft wind, which drove us on at a great rate, though the current is very strong. At ten we came to the other rapid, which we got up with the line on the West side, where we found it much stronger than when we went down; the water had also fallen at least five feet since that time, so that several shoals appeared in the river which we had not seen before, One of my hunters narrowly escaped being drowned in crossing a river that falls in from the Westward, and is the most considerable, except the mountain river, that flows in this direction. We had strong Northerly and cold wind throughout the whole of the day, and took our station for the night at a quarter past eight. We killed a goose and caught some young ones.
Thursday, 30.—We renewed our voyage at four this morning, after a very rainy night. The weather was cloudy, but the cold had moderated, and the wind was North-West. We were enabled to employ the sail during part of the day, and encamped at about seven in the evening. We killed eleven old geese and forty young ones which had just begun to fly. The English chief was very much irritated against one of his young men: that jealousy occasioned this uneasiness, and that it was not without very sufficient cause, was all I could discover. For the last two or three days we had eaten the liquorice root, of which there is a great abundance on the banks of the river. We found it a powerful astringent.
Friday, 31.—The rain was continual throughout the night, and did not subside till nine this morning, when we renewed our progress. The wind and weather the same as yesterday. About three in the afternoon it cleared up and the wind died away, when it became warm. At five the wind veered to the East, and brought cold along with it. There were plenty of whortle berries, raspberries, and a berry called poire, which grows in the greatest abundance. We were very much impeded in our way by shoals of sand and small stones which render the water shallow at a distance from the shore. In other places the bank of the river is lofty: it is formed of black earth and sand, and, as it is continually falling, displayed to us, in some parts, a face of solid ice, to within a foot of the surface. We finished this day's voyage at a quarter before eight, and in the course of it killed seven geese.
We now had recourse to our corn, for we had only consumed three days of our original provision since we began to mount the current. It was my intention to have ascended the river on the South side from the last rapid, to discover if there were any rivers of consequence that flow from the Westward; but the sand-banks were so numerous and the current so strong, that I was compelled to traverse to the opposite side, where the eddy currents are very frequent, which gave us an opportunity of setting our nets and making much more headway.