_25th._--"I have never seen in any part of the country such luxuriance of wood as hereabout, the valley to near the tops of the mountains on both sides covered with thick, strong, dark-green branching pines. We see a good many beaver and some fowl, game (bustards), and duck, but kill few." Finlay declares to the slave, the hunter of his party, his intention to go up the large branch of the Finlay. "This is a disappointment to him as well as to the people, who have indulged their imaginations on this route falling on the Liard River, teeming in beaver and large animals." _7th June._--"This afternoon we have seen a great deal of beaver work, and killed some bustards and Canadian grey geese; we have seen no swans, and the ducks, with few exceptions, are shabby." Finlay gives a statement of his journey made so far, thus:-- Rocky Mountain Portage to entrance of Finlay's Branch 6 days. To Deserter's Portage 4 ,, To Large Branch 5 ,, To Point Du Mouton 4 ,, To end of Portage 4 ,, To Fishing Lakes 3 ,, -- 26 days. -- FINLAY GIVES HIS VIEWS AS TO A "BEAVER COUNTRY." "In some of the large rivers coming into Finlay's branch, where soft ground with wood, eligible for beaver, had been accumulated, beaver were to be found. Otherwise, except such places as here and here, the whole country is one continued mountain valley of rock and stone, and can by no means come under the denomination of a beaver country, in the common acceptation of the word, on the waters of the Hudson's Bay and Mackenzie River." _June 15th._--"Very fine warm weather; huge masses of snow falling down from the mountains with a noise resembling thunder. Those snow _déboules_ seem irresistible, shivering the trees to atoms, carrying all clean before them, forming ruins as if the Tower of Babel or the Pyramids of Egypt had been thrown down from their foundations." _June 29th._--"Made a good fishery to-day: 7 trout, 12 carp, 1 small white fish, like those at McLeod's lake in Western Caledonia." Finlay closes his Journal of seventy-five closely-written quarto pages at the lake high in the mountains, where he saw a river rising. This lake we see from the map to be the source of the Liard River. A TRUSTED TRADER AND HIS FRIENDS.