Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/62

 snakes with horns! and it was not till after the establishment of a trading post near the spot, by the Canadians, who, with their singing and noise, seared the demons away, that the natives ventured to pass by this place of dread.

On the 8th we advanced thirty-three miles, of which the passage of an extensive bay occupied twenty-eight. The ice in this bay was intersected by large and dangerous rents, into one of which, while running heedlessly before the dogs, I fell; but, luckily seizing an upright fragment on the brink, I extricated myself, at the mere ex- pense of a wetting. During the succeeding night it blew furiously from the northward; and when we got up at daybreak, we shook from our blankets a quantity of snow, none of which, unfortunately, adhered to the slippery ice. Our route followed the south side of the lake, from point to point, and at three p.m. we reached Portage la Prairie, a slip of land two miles broad, separating the Manitobah from the Winipēgoos or Lesser Winipeg Lake.

The Winipēgoos is a more extensive body of water than its sister lake, and in summer is brackish; but our route only comprehended a portion of sixty miles, which we easily accomplished in two days. The Duck Mountain forms a very conspicuous object in the western quarter.