Nothing more remarkable occurred, unless I mark for such the amazing quantity of buffaloes, bears, deer, beavers, geese, swans, ducks, turkeys and other game, till we came to a large cave; we stopped to examine it, but after climbing, with great difficulty, near 50 feet almost perpendicular, to get to it, we saw nothing curious, except some pillars of the petrified droppings, that fell from the roof, of a prodigious size. I could not, indeed, penetrate very far, for want of light. Coming back to the edge of the rock, we perceived our canoe a-drift, going down with the stream. Sumpter scrambled down the rock, and, plunging into the river, without giving himself scarce time to pull off his coat, swam a quarter of a mile before he could overtake her. When he returned, every thing on him was stiff frozen. We instantly made a fire to recover him; but this accident, joined to the severity of the weather, obliged us to stay the day and night following. We laid ourselves down to sleep in the mouth of the cave, where we had made our fire, which we no sooner did, than, oppressed with the fatigues of the preceding day, we fell into a sound sleep, from which we were awaked before midnight, by the howling of wild beasts in the cave, who kept us awake with this concert till a little before day. About four o’clock in the morning, we had a more terrifying alarm, we were stunned with a noise, like the splitting of a rock. As there had never been, to all appearance, a fire near that place, I could no otherwise account for it, than by laying it to the fire, which refining the air, might have occasioned some pressure in the cavities, or fired some collected vapour, the explosion of which had been the noise that waked us; yet, as I could not clearly comprehend it, I was under the greatest apprehensions, especially as I could perceive it hollow just under us. The severity, however, of the weather obliged us to stay the next night likewise, but the howling of the beasts, and thinking of the preceding night’s noise, prevented me from getting any sleep. On the morning of the 9th instant, we were, to my great satisfaction, obliged to decamp for want of wood. We passed the place where the canoe was taken up, and came to a fall about a quarter of a mile further, which, had she reached, we should never have seen the least atom of her cargo more.