172 Mackenzie’s Voyages

they entered a channel two and a half miles wide, whose
extent was visible for ten or twelve miles towards the south-
west. he shores were everywhere mountainous, as indeed
their course down the river had been; all of which was so
entirely different from the low undulating elevations of the
prairies which they had left so far behind.

Mackenzie appears to have come to the conclusion that
it would be impossible to reach the open ocean, and being
uncertain whether they were in a bay or among a maze of
inlets and channels he decided to confine his search to a
proper place for taking an observation. He therefore turned
north-west up Labouchere Channel and held a course to
the first prominent point, and was met on his way by three
canoes with fifteen men, moving to another camp. They
stopped to look at the travellers whose possessions they
examined with an air of indifference and disdain, They
spoke the language of the young chief with a different accent
and were no doubt of a different tribe. |

““One of them in particular made me understand with
an air of insolence that a large ‘canoe’ had lately been in
this bay, with people in her like me, and that one of them,
whom he called Macubah (Vancouver), had fired on him,
and that Benzins had struck him on the back with the flat
part of his sword. . . . I do not doubt that he well-deserved
the treatment which he described.”

This party persuaded the young Indian to leave Mac-
kenzie, which action he was powerless to prevent. Coasting
along King’s Island down Dean Channel they were overtaken
by a canoe with two boys in it, which was on its way to
a neighbouring village. The troublesome Indian forced him-
self into Mackenzie’s canoe and requested him to steer to
a narrow Channel opposite, that led to his village in Elcho
Cove, which was accordingly done. His insolence became