The smell of this curious dish was sufficient to sicken me without tasting it, but the hunger of my people surmounted the nauseous meal.

When unadulterated by the stinking oil these boiled roes are not unpalatable food." Farther on their journey their hunger was alleviated by wild parsnips, also roots which appeared, when pulled up, like a bunch of white peas, with the colour and taste of a potato.

On their way they were obliged to cross snow mountains, where the snow was so compact that their feet hardly made any perceptible impression.

"Before us appeared a stupendous mountain, whose snow-clad summit was lost in the clouds." These mountains, according to the Indians, abounded in white goats.[11] Emerging from the mountains on to the lower ground, sloping towards the sea, at nightfall they came upon a native village in the thickness of the woods.

Desperate with his fatigue, and risking any danger to obtain rest, Mackenzie walked straight into one of the houses, where people were busily employed in cooking fish, threw down his burden, shook hands with the people, and sat down.
[Footnote 1: _Oreamnus_.] "They received me without the least appearance of surprise, but soon made signs for me to go up to the large house, which was erected, on upright posts, at some distance from the ground.