Camping Outfit.

Medicine Chest.[84]

[84] Best procurable at Burroughs & Welcome, Snow Hill, London.

A few cheap knives, compasses, &c., may be taken as presents for the natives. All these supplies will weigh, roughly speaking, 1400 lbs., and the whole outfit may be purchased at San Francisco, or any other city on the Pacific slope, for about £60.

Above the Hootalinqua the Lewes is known as the thirty-mile river, that being about the distance from the mouth of the first-named stream to the foot of the lake. This is a dangerous bit of navigation, for the Thirty Mile rushes out of Le Barge like a mill sluice and the little White Horse panted and puffed and rained showers of sparks in her frantic efforts to make headway. Several steamers which have been lost here perpetually menace the safety of others. It is impossible to raise the sunken vessels, the force of the current here being so great that it seemed when standing on the deck of the steamer as though one were looking down an inclined plane of water. The stream here runs through pine forests, ending at the river's edge in low, sandy cliffs, portions of which have been torn bodily away by the force of the ice in springtime to form miniature islands some yards from the shore.[85] A characteristic of this stream is its marvellous transparency. On a clear day rocks and boulders are visible at a depth of twenty to thirty feet. I have observed a similar effect on the River Rhone and other streams fed to a large extent by glaciers and melting snow.

[85] The fall from Lake Lindemann at the head of the lake and river system is about 800 ft. in a distance of about 540 miles.

The afternoon of the third day found us entering Lake Le Barge,[86] a sheet of water thirty-one miles in length, which stands over two thousand feet above the sea-level, and is surrounded by precipitous mountains, densely wooded as far as the timber line, with curiously crenelated limestone summits. The southern shores of the lake are composed of vast plains of fertile meadow land, interspersed with picturesque and densely wooded valleys, a landscape which, combined with the blue waters of Le Barge and snowy summits glittering on the horizon, reminds one of Switzerland. Le Barge has an evil reputation for storms, and only recently a river steamer had gone down with all hands in one of the sudden and violent squalls peculiar to this region. To-day, however, a brazen sun blazed down upon a liquid mirror, and I sat on the bridge under an awning with a cool drink and a cigar, and complacently watched the glassy surface where five years before we had to battle in an open skiff against a stiff gale, drenched by the waves and worn out by hard work at the oars. To-day the White Horse accomplished the passage from river to river in about three hours, while on the former occasion it took us as many days!

[86] Lake Le Barge was named after Mike Le Barge, of the "Western Union Telegraph Company," who was employed in constructing the overland telegraph line from America to Europe (viâ Bering Straits) in 1867. The completion of the Atlantic cable about this period put an end to the project.