them. It had been our invariable practice hitherto to encamp near
hills, and be on their summits by the dawn of day, to try to discover
the morning smoke ascending from the Red Indians' camps; and, to
prevent the discovery of ourselves, we extinguished our own fire
always some length of time before day-light.

Our only and frail hope now left of seeing the Red Indians lay on the
banks of the River Exploits, on our return to the sea-coast.

The Red Indians' Lake discharges itself about three or four miles from
its north-east end, and its waters from the River Exploits. From the
lake to the sea-coast is considered about seventy miles; and down this
noble river the steady perseverance and intrepidity of my Indians
carried me on rafts in four days, to accomplish which otherwise, would
have required, probably, two weeks. We landed at various places on
both banks of the river on our way down, but found no traces of the
Red Indians so recent as those seen at the portage at Badger Bay-Great
Lake, towards the beginning of our excursion. During our descent, we
had to construct new rafts at the different waterfalls. Sometimes we
were carried down the rapids at the rate of ten miles an hour or more,
with considerable risk of destruction to the whole party, for we were
always together on one raft.

What arrests the attention most while gliding down the stream, is the
extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend from the
lake downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river at least thirty
miles. There are openings left here and there in them, for the animals
to go through and swim across the river, and at these places the
Indians are stationed, and kill them in the water with spears, out of
their canoes, as at the lake. Here, then, connecting these fences with