66 Sir ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

In the lower reaches of the river they met
many Indians whom they had not seen on
the way down, but higher, though they saw
many signs of habitation, the Indians either
deliberately avoided them or were away hunt-
ing. Mackenzie picked up some tantalizing
information. One Indian told that the Eski-
mos had reported meeting “‘large canoes full
of white men to the westward, eight or ten
winters ago, from whom they obtained iron in
exchange for leather’ —probably a party of
Russians from Alaska. A second described
“another river on the other side of the moun-
tains to the south-west, which falls into the
Belhoullay Toe or White Man’s Lake [i.e., the
ocean], in comparison of which that on whose
banks we then were was but a small stream,”
giving such interesting details as that the
natives of this river could kill common men
with their eyes. A third added that this new
river ran towards the mid-day sun, drew a
map of it for Mackenzie on the sand, and said
that he had heard there was a white man’s
fort near its mouth. ‘This river was probably
the Yukon, but Mackenzie conceived it to be