Fire in an
open place to-night, and I do not like to go out to supper. It is
so cold. Thinking now we may possibly get to the post day after
to-morrow. George says be thinks the river must be pretty straight
from here. I rather think it will take us a little more than two
days. All feel that we may have good hope of catching the steamer.
Perhaps we shall get to tide water to-morrow. There have been
signs of porcupine along the way to-day, and one standing wigwam.
There is a big bed of moss berries (a small black berry, which
grows on a species of moss and is quite palatable) right at my tent
door to-night. So strange, almost unbelievable, to think we are
coming so near to Ungava. I begin to realise that I have never
actually counted on being able to get there."
The country grew more and more mountainous and rugged and barren.
The wood growth, which is of spruce and tamarack, with here and
there a little balsam, was for some distance below the Barren
Grounds Water rather more abundant than it had been along the lake
shores. At best it was but a narrow belt along the water edge
covering the hills to a height of perhaps two hundred feet and
dwindling gradually toward the north, till in some places it was
absent altogether and our tents were pitched where no trees grew.
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