"June 21.--Having reached the falls, we found ourselves obliged to get past them by transporting our boats overland by what is called a _portage_. The distance was eighteen miles. It was necessary to construct a truck or carriage to transport the boats; and the making of the wheels and the necessary framework took ten days. The axle-trees, made of an old mast, broke repeatedly, and the cottonwood tongues gave way; so that the men were forced to carry as much baggage as they could on their backs. The prickly pear annoyed them much by sticking through their moccasons. It required several trips to transport all the canoes and baggage; and, though the men put double soles to their moccasons, the prickly pear, and the sharp points of earth formed by the trampling of the buffaloes during the late rains, wounded their feet; and, as the men were laden as heavily as their strength would permit, the crossing was very painful. They were obliged to halt and rest frequently; and, at almost every stopping-place, they would throw themselves down, and fall asleep in an instant. Yet no one complained, and they went on with cheerfulness. "Having decided to leave here one of the pirogues, we set to work to fit up a boat of skins, upon a frame of iron which had been prepared at the armory at Harper's Ferry. It was thirty-six feet long, four feet and a half wide at top, and twenty-six inches wide at bottom. It was with difficulty we found the necessary timber to complete it, even tolerably straight sticks, four and a half feet long. The sides were formed of willow-bark, and, over this, elk and buffalo skins." A NARROW ESCAPE.