Srr ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

56

By July 9 Mackenzie was drawing near
the end of his search. A new tribe of Indians
told him that those he had met upstream
were “no better than old women, and abomin-
able liars, which,” he adds, ‘“‘coincided with
the notion we already entertained of them.”
These were much less unattractive in appear-
ance, and gave Mackenzie encouraging infor-
mation. The sea, they said, was only ten
days’ journey distant, and they showed him
pieces of iron and bows which they had
obtained from the Eskimos of the coast. On
the roth he passed a bend in the river with
high cliffs, now known as the Lower Ram-
parts, and the Rocky Mountains, covered
with snow, came into sight once more. Soon
after, the party reached a place where “the
river widens, and runs through various chan-
nels formed by islands’”—the beginning of the
large delta at the mouth of the river. After
some discussion as to the proper channel to
take, Mackenzie, against the advice of his
latest guide borrowed from the last tribe,
selected the middle one because it was the
largest. He secured that day an observation