Finally Gist succeeded in keeping him sober a day, and yet, as he said, reasonably intoxicated with promises of great gifts; and so at last, on December 16, we gladly bade farewell and set out in our birch canoes to go down French Creek.
A cannon was fired, and the officers assembled on shore saluted us politely as we left the fort. The commandant sent one canoe loaded with strong liquors to be used on the way, and at Venango to overcome the wits of Tanacharisson.
Each of us, Gist and Van Braam and Davidson, was seated very comfortably in the middle of a canoe of birch bark; at the bow and stern were Indians or half-breeds, and, as the water was very rapid most of the way, they used poles of ash to hold and guide the canoes. On the 18th December we were no longer comfortable. The ice was thick, and we had all of us to wade and, in places, to portage. On the 22d we came to a strong rapid. Gist advised to land and portage the provisions. This we did, and, being arrived before the French canoes, stood to watch them descend, a fine sight. About half-way the man on the bow of one canoe—that with the liquors—caught his
