some giant hand. A dry, black, leaflike substance patched their
surfaces, and this George told me is the _wakwanapsk_ which the
Indians in their extremity of hunger use for broth. Though black
and leaflike when mature, it is, in its beginning, like a disk of
tiny round green spots, and from this it gets its name. _Wakwuk--
fish-roe; _wanapisk_--a rock.

It was a very rough place, very desolate looking, and far from the
river. It made me shudder to think of spending Sunday there. So
the men were persuaded to try to reach the head of the rapid, which
was three-quarters of a mile farther on, taking forward only the
camp stuff. We were now travelling along the foot of Bald Mountain
seen from the hill on Monday, and passing what is known by the
trappers as North Pole Rapid, which was the wildest of the rapids
so far. The travelling was still rough, and the men were in a
hurry. I could not keep up at all. George wanted to carry my
rifle for me, but I would not let him. I was not pleased with him
just then.

We reached the head of the rapid, and it was beautiful there. A
long terrace stretched away for miles ahead. It was thinly wooded,
as they all were, with spruce and a few poplars, smooth, dry, and
mossy, and thirty feet below us was the river with North Pole Brook
coming in on the other side. It was an ideal place for Sunday
camp.

Though it rained hard through the night the morning was beautiful,
and again I breathed a little sigh of thankfulness that we were not
in the other desolate place farther back. The day would have been
a very restful one had it not been for the flies which steadily