Читать книгу The Journey to the Polar Sea - Franklin John - Страница 40

In the course of the day we surmounted this and another dangerous portage called the Upper and Lower Hill Gate Portages, crossed a small sheet of water, termed the White Fall Lake and, entering the river of the same name, arrived at the White Fall about an hour after sunset, having come fourteen miles on a South-West course.

The whole of the 2nd of October was spent in carrying the cargoes over a portage of thirteen hundred yards in length and in launching the empty boats over three several ridges of rock which obstruct the channel and produce as many cascades. I shall long remember the rude and characteristic wildness of the scenery which surrounded these falls; rocks piled on rocks hung in rude and shapeless masses over the agitated torrents which swept their bases, whilst the bright and variegated tints of the mosses and lichens that covered the face of the cliffs, contrasting with the dark green of the pines which crowned their summits, added both beauty and grandeur to the scene. Our two companions, Back and Hood, made accurate sketches of these falls. At this place we observed a conspicuous lop-stick, a kind of landmark which I have not hitherto noticed, notwithstanding its great use in pointing out the frequented routes. It is a pine-tree divested of its lower branches and having only a small tuft at the top remaining. This operation is usually performed at the instance of some individual emulous of fame. He treats his companions with rum and they in return strip the tree of its branches and ever after designate it by his name.

In the afternoon, whilst on my way to superintend the operations of the men, a stratum of loose moss gave way under my feet and I had the misfortune to slip from the summit of a rock into the river betwixt two of the falls. My attempts to regain the bank were for a time ineffectual owing to the rocks within my reach having been worn smooth by the action of the water; but after I had been carried a considerable distance down the stream I caught hold of a willow by which I held until two gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company came in a boat to my assistance. The only bad consequence of this accident was an injury sustained by a very valuable chronometer (Number 1733) belonging to Daniel Moore, Esquire, of Lincoln's Inn. One of the gentlemen to whom I delivered it immediately on landing in his agitation let it fall, whereby the minutehand was broken, but the works were not in the smallest degree injured and the loss of the hand was afterwards supplied.

During the night the frost was severe; and at sunrise on the 3rd the thermometer stood at 25 degrees. After leaving our encampment at the White Fall we passed through several small lakes connected with each other by narrow, deep, grassy streams, and at noon arrived at the Painted Stone. Numbers of muskrats frequent these streams; and we observed in the course of the morning many of their mud-houses rising in a conical form to the height of two or three feet above the grass of the swamps in which they were built.

The Painted Stone is a low rock, ten or twelve yards across, remarkable for the marshy streams which arise on each side of it, taking different courses. On the one side the watercourse which we had navigated from York Factory commences. This spot may therefore be considered as one of the smaller sources of Hayes River.