boats, to aquatic excursions round Staten Island and in its vicinity.
They were skilful helmsmen, and in this particular, in passing the
rapids, were frequently useful. Notwithstanding this qualification,
however, Burr, with some soldiers in a boat, was carried over a fall
of nearly twenty feet. One man was drowned, and much of the baggage
lost. The weather was cold, and it was with great difficulty that he
reached the shore.

"Arnold, who, at the head of the two first divisions, still prosecuted
his march, was thirty-two days traversing a hideous wilderness,
without seeing a house or any thing human. The troops were under the
necessity of hauling their bateaux up rapid streams; of taking them
upon their shoulders, with all their provisions, across
carrying-places; and of traversing, and frequently repassing, for the
purpose of bringing their baggage, deep morasses, thick woods, and
high mountains. These impediments, notwithstanding the zealous and
wonderfully persevering exertions of his men, so protracted his march,
that, though he had expected certainly to enter Canada about the
middle of October, he did not reach the first settlements on the
Chaudiere, which empties itself into the St. Lawrence near Quebec,
until the third of November.

"On the high grounds which separate the waters of the Kennebec from
those of the St. Lawrence, the scanty remnant of provisions was
divided among the companies, each of which was directed, without
attempting to preserve any connexion with another, to march with the
utmost possible celerity into the inhabited country. While those who
gained the front were yet thirty miles from the first poor and
scattered habitations which composed that frontier of Canada, their
last morsel of food was consumed. But, preceded by Arnold, who went