Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/337

Rh which must have happened to any of the flat-bottomed inland bateaux in the same situation. It snowed heavily, and ice an inch thick formed at night in the kettles; but our people worked their way up the rapids with equal spirit and dexterity, and we encamped two miles below the Escape.

In the passage of that dangerous rapid, the following day, Mr. Dease's boat got broken, in consequence of the line snapping, and the bowman losing his presence of mind. The injury was repaired in a few hours, and we made good ten miles. The lurking rock, which had so nearly caused our destruction on the descent, now rose high above the shrunken stream, leaving the narrow, perilous channel that saved us almost dry. At the foot of the long succession of precipices which we shot past with such amazing velocity in June, there was now, in most parts, a narrow bank or ledge exposed by the subsiding of the waters. Where this was not the case, all hands embarked; and, if no bottom could be found with the setting-poles, the boats were drawn up by means of the ice-hooks, fixed in crevices and on sharp points of the rock. In this difficult operation it was necessary actually to graze the cliffs, some fending off the boat's side; otherwise the force of the current must have overpowered our hold, and x 2