impregnated with dark sand held in solution. As we were preparing to rest for the night a bright glare of lightning and a sharp peal of thunder warn us to protect our clothes as best we can against rain. We saw but one flash and heard its accompanying loud crash, to remind us that each night of our descent by the Ille-celle-waet we have been saluted after dark by heaven’s artillery. Our relief is great in the morning to find that it does not rain, that the sky is clear and that there is promise of a fine day. We have all slept well and are refreshed and hope to make the Columbia early in the day. We start off cheerfully, but we are not out of the canyon. We again climb through the rocky defile, and about half a mile from our starting point we reach a jam of trunks of trees, not far from its lower end. Tree after tree has been piled here by the current for many a year. Who can tell the period? For the space of some hundreds of yards up and down the stream a mass has been heaped up thirty or forty feet above the level of the water. There is an accumulation of material at this spot which would be a fortune to its possessor if he had it in London or any European city. We cautiously clamber from log to log over this jam and reach the opposite side of the canyon. We proceed onward soon to find the ground cumbered by many fallen trees, with masses of rocks and the invariable ferns and devil’s clubs in all their luxuriance. We continue our march, making our halts by rule, and on the whole make decent progress. We halt at mid-day sufficiently long to eat our bread and cold bacon, and we thought we ought to be within hearing of a gunshot from the Columbia. We expect the party from Kamloops with supplies to meet us there. It is the eleventh of the month. I had named the 8th of September as the date at the latest when we should reach the place appointed. Accordingly I direct my son rapidly to fire two rifle shots. We listen attentively and in a short time we hear the welcome report of a gunshot. We answer with three shots in quick succession, and again we hear a gunshot. We count almost with breathless excitement. It is repeated and again repeated,--it is the three shots! Thank God! We have established our connection. Our friends are in front of us with the provisions on which we rely. All anxiety for the future is past, and the promised waters of the Columbia cannot be far from us.