Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/264

 the form of a sugar loaf, and with three loud hurrahs gave it my name. {198} This mountain is more than 14,000 feet high, and is covered with perpetual snow.

On the 25th April, I bade farewell to my kind friend Mr. Frazer, and his amiable children, who had treated me with every mark of attention and kindness.

All the men in the camp insisted on honoring me with an escort, and accompanied me a distance of ten miles. Here we separated, each one affectionately pressed my hand—mutual good wishes were exchanged—tears flowed on both sides—and I was left with my companions in one of those wild ravines where nothing meets the eye, but ranges of gloomy mountains rising on all sides, like so many impassable barriers.

Upper Athabasca is, unquestionably, the most elevated part of North America. All its mountains are prodigious, and their rocky and snow-capt summits seem to lose themselves in the clouds. At this season, immense masses of snow often become loosened and roll down the mountains' sides with a terrific noise, that resounds throughout these quiet solitudes like distant thunder—so irresistible is the velocity of their descent, that they frequently carry with them enormous fragments of rock, and force a {199} passage through the dense forests which cover the base of the mountain. At each hour, the noise of ten avalanches descending at once, breaks upon the ear; on every side we see them precipitated with a frightful rapidity.

From these mountains, the majestic river of the north, the upper branch of the Sascatshawin, the two great forks of the McKenzie, the Athabasca and Peace rivers, the Columbia, and Frazer at the west, derive the greater part of their waters.

In the neighborhood of the Miette river, we fell in with one of those poor families of Porteurs or "Itoaten," of