102 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. vi. 



swamp the fragile craft, bring it under the fall, or break 

 it on a rock. 



How shall I describe dancing at the foot of a cataract, 

 in a tiny birch-bark canoe, by the red light of a torch, 

 on a night without a moon? You see before you a 

 wall of water, red, green, and white, tumbling inces- 

 santly at your feet ; on either hand you gaze on a wall 

 of rock, rising so high as to be lost in the gloom, and 

 apparently blending with the sky. You look behind, and 

 there is a foaming torrent rushing into the blackness 

 of night, sweeping past the eddy in which your birchen 

 craft is lightly dancing to the loud music of a waterfall. 



No sound but its never-ceasing din can reach you 

 no near object meets the eye which does not reflect a 

 red glare. Suddenly the torch falls, and is instantly 

 extinguished in the seething waters ; absolute darkness 

 envelopes you ; the white foam, the changing green of 

 the falling water, the red reflected right of the broken 

 waves, all become uniformly and absolutely black. 

 Nothing whatever is discernible to the eye ; but perhaps 

 another sense tells you of swift undulating motion, a 

 rolling ride over stormy waves, with a lessening roar. 

 Your eyes gradually recover their power of vision, and 

 you find yourself either swaying up and down in the 

 same eddy, or far away from the cataract on the main 

 channel of the river, secure against whirlpools and 

 rocks, with the Indians quietly paddling the canoe, and 

 about to turn again to resume their savage sport. 



The instant the light fell into the water, an event 

 which often occurs with birch-bark torches, the Indian 

 in the stern decided whether to remain in the eddy 



