Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/373

Rh us that the ice had ceased driving down the Coppermine on the 16th, ten days earlier than last year; and, being sensible of an equal difference in the progress of vegetation, mutual felicitations passed on the brightness of our present prospects. The next two days being very bad and boisterous, all we could do was to get the boats ready, and settle other arrangements. Our crews having undergone several changes, it may be as well here to name them over again.

On the 22nd we ran down to the Bloody Fall, without stopping to make a single portage; making, in fact, light of the rapids, which the falling of the river rendered much less formidable than on the same day of the previous year, though some of them did not fail to initiate our new hands, by pouring a few harmless waves into the boats. The descent occupied nearly