Mr. Hardisty, and the other officers of the Fort, tried earnestly to dissuade us from attempting to cross by the Leather Pass, alleging that the season was not yet far enough advanced, and the rivers would be at their height, swollen by the melting of the mountain snows. They assured us that many of the streams were fierce and rocky torrents, exceedingly dangerous to cross, except when low in the autumn, and that the country on the West of the mountains, as far as it was known, was a region rugged and inhospitable, everywhere covered with impenetrable forest; and even if we descended the Fraser, instead of attempting to reach Cariboo, we should find that river full of rapids and whirlpools, which had often proved fatal to the most expert canoemen. This pass, known by the several names of the Leather, Jasper House, Cowdung Lake, and Yellow Head Pass, had been formerly used by the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company as a portage from the Athabasca to the Fraser, but had long been abandoned on account of the numerous casualties which attended the navigation of the latter river. We were able to learn but little of the country on the west of the mountains, nor could we obtain any certain information of the course which the Canadian emigrants intended to follow. From Andrè Cardinal, the French half-breed who had guided the party across, we learned that on reaching Tête Jaune’s Cache, on the Fraser, at the western part of the main ridge, the band divided, part of them descending the Fraser in large rafts, and the remainder turning south for the Thompson River. Cardinal accompanied them until they reached the main branch of the North Thompson, having been guided thither by a Shushwap Indian from the Cache; and he further stated that, from a lofty eminence, they had, like the Israelites of old, viewed the promised land, the hills of Cariboo being visible in the far distance. But, in cross-examination, his answers proved very contradictory and obscure. He acknowledged that the Indian knew the gold country only by vague report, and had never visited the region he pointed out as the land they sought. And he was uncertain whether the emigrants intended to try and reach Cariboo direct, or steer for Fort Kamloops on the Thompson. He furnished us, however, with a rough outline of the road as far as he had gone, which, except as to relative distances, proved tolerably correct. In addition to the large band which Andrè Cardinal had guided across the mountains, another party of five had left Edmonton late in the autumn of the same year, 1862, with the intention of procuring canoes at Tête Jaune’s Cache, and descending the Fraser to Fort George.