portages, and found that we carried our canoes thirty-five times, and dragged them at least fifty. I sometimes took a hand in helping my Savages; but the bottom of the river is full of stones, so sharp that I could not walk long, being barefooted. La deuxiesme difficulté ordinaire est pour le viure; souuent il faut ieusner, si l'on vient à perdre les caches qu'on a faites en descendant, & quand on les retrouue, on ne laisse pas d'auoir bon appetit apres s'y estre traicté. Car le manger ordinaire n'est que d'vn peu de bled d'Inde [124] cassé assez grossierement entre deux pierres, & quelquefois tout entier dans de l'eau pure. Cela n'est pas de grand goust. Quelquesfois on a du poisson, mais c'est hazard, excepté quand on passe quelque Nation où l'on en peut acheter. Adioustez à ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nuẽ, ou sur quelque dure roche, faute de trouuer dix ou douze pieds de terre en quarré pour placer vne chetiue cabane; qu'il faut sentir incessammẽt la puanteur des Sauuages recreus, marcher dãs les eaux, dãs les fanges, dans l'obscurité & l'embaras des forests, où les piqueures d'vne multitude infinie de mousquilles & cousins vous importunent fort. The second ordinary difficulty, is in regard to provisions. Frequently one has to fast, if he misses the caches that were made when descending; and, even if they are found, one does not fail to have a good appetite after indulging in them; for the ordinary food is only a little Indian corn [124] coarsely broken between two stones, and sometimes taken whole in pure water; it is no great treat. Occasionally one has fish, but it is only a chance, unless one is passing some Tribe where they can be bought. Add to these difficulties that one must sleep on the bare earth, or on a hard rock, for lack of a space ten or twelve feet square on which to place a wretched hut; that one must endure continually the stench of tired-out Savages; and must walk in water, in mud, in the obscurity and entanglement of the forest, where the stings of an infinite number of mosquitoes and gnats are a serious annoyance.