Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/202

 causes the extraordinary increase and agitation of the waters spoken of by the Esquimaux. It was a subject of unavailing regret that the great distance of our wintering ground rendered it impossible to spare a few days for the examination of this interesting and magnificent stream. Mr. Robert Campbell has been lately employed by the Company—as successor to that enterprising traveller, Chief Trader John M'Leod,—to establish a post among the stupendous fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, on the sources of the impetuous Liard River, in lat. 57° or 58° and to explore the streams flowing thence towards the Pacific. This young and active traveller met, on the banks of a river called the Stikine, discovered by his predecessor in 1834, a great concourse of Nahanie Indians assembled round a party of Russians. The latter ascend the river in boats to a cataract far within the British lines, at the foot of which there is a splendid salmon fishery. There were a number of men, commanded by four ragged, drunken officers, who spoke a few broken words of English. Campbell afterwards received accounts from the natives of a much larger river, that also takes its rise on the west side of the mountains in a great lake to the northward of the Stikine. From the description I sent him of the Colvile,