Here a nine miles' carry was made to one of the sources of the Wabash, called by the voyageurs "la petite riviere." This stream was so low that the boats could not have gone down it had it not been for a beaver dam four miles below the landing-place, which backed up the current.

An opening was made in the dam to let the boats pass.
The traders and Indians thoroughly appreciated the help given them at this difficult part of the course by the engineering skill of the beavers--for Hamilton was following the regular route of the hunting, trading, and war parties,--and none of the beavers of this particular dam were ever molested, being left to keep their dam in order, and repair it, which they always speedily did whenever it was damaged.
[Footnote: Haldimand's MSS.

Hamilton's "brief account."] It proved as difficult to go down the Wabash as to get up the Maumee.
The water was shallow, and once or twice in great swamps dykes had to be built that the boats might be floated across.

Frost set in heavily, and the ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over shoals or rocks.

The bateaux often needed to be beached and caulked, while both whites and Indians had to help carry the loads round the shoal places.