Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/41

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ENTERPRISE AND ADVENTURE.
25

could detect their mistake. Of the whole party, including women and children, not one of them survived to relate the catastrophe that had befallen their comrades. The only living thing they found was a hog, in company with one of the families which had been so suddenly bereft of life. In those perilous circumstances, the surviving party did not even stay to bewail their fate; but leaving their deceased companions as they found them, hurried on and overtook the company in advance at the place of their encampment.



OVER THE RAPIDS.




On the 29th of April, 1810, a party of Englishmen embarked at Pointe du Lac, on Lake St. Frances, in Canada, in an American barge, or broad flat-bottomed boat, deeply laden with wood ashes, passengers, and baggage, with the intention of proceeding down the River St. Lawrence. The adventures of this little river vessel and its passengers have been related by one of the party in a narrative which, for exciting interest, may be compared with any of the most thrilling stories of disaster by wreck.

Above Montreal, for nearly a hundred miles, the River St. Lawrence, as is well known, is interrupted in its course by rapids, which are occasioned by the river being confined within comparatively narrow, shallow, rocky channels. Through these it rushes with great force and noise, and is agitated like the ocean in a storm. By some, these rapids have been admired for