During Our Conversation He Endeavoured To Excite
Suspicions In Our Minds Against The Hook By Saying, "I Am Aware That You
Consider Me The Worst Man Of My Nation; But I Know The Hook To Be A Great
Rogue And I Think He Will Disappoint You."
On the morning of the 6th we embarked and descended a series of rapids,
having twice unloaded the canoes where the water was shallow.
After
passing the mouth of the Fairy Lake River* the rapids ceased. The main
stream was then about three hundred yards wide and generally deep, though
in one part the channel was interrupted by several sandy banks and low
alluvial islands covered with willows. It flows between banks of sand
thinly wooded and as we advanced the barren hills approached the water's
edge.
(*Footnote. This is an Indian name. The Northern Indian fairies are six
inches high, lead a life similar to the Indians, and are excellent
hunters. Those who have had the good fortune to fall in with their tiny
encampments have been kindly treated and regaled on venison. We did not
learn with certainty whether the existence of these delightful creatures
is known from Indian tradition or whether the Indians own their knowledge
of them to their intercourse with the traders, but think the former
probable.)
At ten we rejoined our hunters who had killed a deer and halted to
breakfast. We sent them forward; one of them who was walking along the
shore afterwards fired upon two brown bears and wounded one of them,
which instantly turned and pursued him.
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