There is no rock stratum seen in place, on the De Corbeau summit. Its surface is purely composed of geological drift and boulders. The journey had been a very hard and fatiguing one for the men, who were on the push and trot all day, embarking and debarking continually on lakes, or scrambling, with their burdens and canoes, over elevations or through morasses. It was particularly severe on the soldiers, who are ill-prepared for this kind of toil.
The chief Guelle Plat, with some companions of the Mukandwa band, had overtaken us, at the Lake of the Isle, and came and encamped beside us. I invited him to sup with us, and the evening was passed in conversing with him on various topics. I found him a man of understanding and comprehensive views, who was well acquainted with the history of his people. It was twelve o'clock before these conversations ended, when he got up to go to his camp fire. With him there sat Majegabowee,[181] a tall, gaunt, and savage-looking man of Red River, who scarcely uttered a word, but sat a silent listener to the superior powers of conversation and reflection of his chief. But I could not look at this person without a sense of horror, when I reflected that in him I beheld the murderer of Gov. Semple, of the Hudson's Bay Territory, a circumstance which I have previously adverted to, while at Leech Lake.[182]
[181] The Fore-standing man. From the verb _maja_, to go, _ninabow_, I stand, and _izzee_, a person or man.
[182] For an account of this transaction, _vide_ Reports of the Disputes between the Earl of Selkirk and the Northwest Company, at the assizes held at York, Upper Canada, Oct. 1818. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 664. Montreal, Casie & Mower, 1819.
Bidding adieu to the Leech Lake chief the next morning at sunrise (4 h. 45 m.), after giving him a lancet, with directions to vaccinate any of his people who had been overlooked, I embarked on the Kaginogamaug. This is a beautiful lake, with sylvan shores and crystal water, some four or five miles long. We were just forty minutes, with full paddles, in passing it. The outlet is narrow, and overhung with alders. The width is not over six feet, with good depth, but the turns are so sudden, and the stream so thickly overhung with foliage, that the use of the axe and the paddle as an excavator were often necessary. It then expands into a lake, called Little Vermilion, which is fringed with a growth of birch and aspen, with pines in the distance. Its outlet is fully doubled in width, and we had henceforth no more embarrassment in descending. This outlet is pursued about eight miles. I noticed the tamarack on its banks, and the nymphæ odorata, scirpus lacustris, and Indian reed on the margin. It expands into Birch Lake, a clear sheet, about one mile long, with pebbly bottom, interspersed with boulders. A short outlet, in which we passed a broken fish-dam, connects it with Lac Plè. This lake is about three and a half miles long, exhibiting a portion of prairie on its shores, interspersed with small pines. From it, there is a portage to Ottertail Lake, the eastern source of Red River. This is the common war road of the Mukundwa against the Sioux.