Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/116

 We returned to the boats the following day at noon. The interval had been employed by the carpenter in re-caulking the seams opened by the frost and heat, which rendered them perfectly tight during the remainder of the voyage. As soon as this operation was completed, we re-embarked, and descended Slave River for twenty miles.

The 8th was fine, but a fresh north-west wind much retarded our progress; and, though we were on the water fourteen hours, we advanced little more than forty miles. The Indian flotilla came up to us while ashore breakfasting. They had two large beavers on board, just killed, and a little cub, which they picked up as it was helplessly carried down by the stream. We encamped at Stony Point, which was strewed with fragments of gypsum. Our journey next day was precisely similar. Though travelling directly northward, the warm limestone bed over which the river flows nourished an advanced vegetation. We several times put ashore, and availing ourselves of the willowy covert, here in full leaf, shot a number of geese that were basking on the sunny beach. We halted at a late hour below the channel called Rivière à Jean.

Following the principal mouth of the river,