Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/374

344 eleven hours, the windings of the river greatly increasing the actual distance. Our deposit of provisions in the cleft of the rock was untouched by man or beast; but slightly affected by damp, though not nearly to the extent—one half—for which, in arranging our commissariat, we had made allowance. The rudders, masts, &c. were found safe on the islet below.

The sea-ice being still perfectly solid, it was resolved to remain a few days at the Bloody Fall, to afford me an opportunity of exploring Richardson River, discovered and named by us in 1838; this indeed was our chief reason for descending the Coppermine so early.

On Monday, the 24th, I set out with the Esquimaux interpreter and four others, and fell upon the river at the end of seven miles in a west-north-west direction. Some stout willows grow upon its banks, but it is totally destitute of wood. The masses of drift ice and deep furrows in the mud shewed that there had been an inundation of not less than thirty feet perpendicular at the recent breaking up; but since then its waters had fallen with great rapidity, and were still very muddy. From thence to the bottom of Back's Inlet, into which, as I rightly conjectured last year, the Richardson falls, is a distance of only eight miles. We came in view of the inlet from