Having embarked, the troops and Indians paddled down stream to Lake
Erie, reaching it in a snowstorm, and when a lull came they struck
boldly across the lake, making what bateau men still call a "traverse"
of thirty-six miles to the mouth of the Maumee. Darkness overtook them
while still on the lake, and the head boats hung out lights for the
guidance of those astern; but about midnight a gale came up, and the
whole flotilla was nearly swamped, being beached with great difficulty
on an oozy flat close to the mouth of the Maumee. The waters of the
Maumee were low, and the boats were poled slowly up against the current,
reaching the portage point, where there was a large Indian village, on
the 24th of the month. Here a nine miles' carry was made to one of the
sources of the Wabash, called by the voyageurs "la petite rivière." This
stream was so low that the boats could not have gone down it had it not
been for a beaver dam four miles below the landing-place, which backed
up the current. An opening was made in the dam to let the boats pass.
The traders and Indians thoroughly appreciated the help given them at
this difficult part of the course by the engineering skill of the
beavers--for Hamilton was following the regular route of the hunting,
trading, and war parties,--and none of the beavers of this particular
dam were ever molested, being left to keep their dam in order, and
repair it, which they always speedily did whenever it was damaged.
[Footnote: Haldimand's MSS. Hamilton's "brief account."]

It proved as difficult to go down the Wabash as to get up the Maumee.
The water was shallow, and once or twice in great swamps dykes had to be
built that the boats might be floated across. Frost set in heavily, and
the ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over
shoals or rocks. The bateaux often needed to be beached and caulked,
while both whites and Indians had to help carry the loads round the
shoal places. At every Indian village it was necessary to stop, hold a