The“ Mountain of Rocks’. — 129

then warped up the hill by means of a rope, the end of which
was given a turn around a tree above. In this way every foot
gained was held. By two in the afternoon the whole outfht
had been safely hauled and carried to the summit, that is
to say, on to the general level above, and the men at once
began cutting a road westward, about a mile of which was
completed that day, through a forest of large trees with little
or no underbrush. On Thursday the party moved on three
miles, and by Friday at four in the afternoon the river was
reached a hundred yards or so above the rapids, where, later,
Cust’s House was established.

Mackenzie estimates the length of the road that they made
at about seven miles, but remarks that the Indian carrying-
place, whose length was probably ten miles, was safer and
more expeditious than the passage they had cut with so
much difficulty.

Two hundred yards below their location the mighty
Peace was contracted to thirty-five yards between perpendicu-
lar rocks through which it rushed with astonishing but silent
velocity. The river was rising daily. In a higher stage these
portals would themselves be submerged, and the greater
volume of water would rush as swiftly through a channel a
hundred yards wide flanked by cliffs of considerable height.

‘At a small distance below, the channel widens in a kind
of zig-zag progression, and it was really awful to behold
with what infinite force the water drives against the rocks
on one side, and with what impetuous strength it is repelled
to the other; it then falls back, as it were, into a more straight
but rugged passage, over which it is tossed in high foaming,
half-formed billows, as far as the eye could reach.”

A large number of trees had been felled with axes in
this vicinity, either by the Knistencaux, or some tribe
accustomed to this tool. While his men busied themselves