DANGEROUS RAPIDS. 365 



The next reach turned to the northward, and be- 

 came so wide that it might well have been called 

 a lake. Such expansions always occasioned us 

 some perplexity, from the uncertainty and diffi- 

 culty there was in tracing the run of the current. 

 In this instance, however, it was less inconstant 

 than usual, and for a few miles continued nearly 

 in the same course ; when, after gradually con- 

 tracting, it was broken by a mile of heavy and 

 dangerous rapids. The boat was lightened, and 

 every care taken to avoid accidents ; but so over- 

 whelming was the rush and whirl of the water, 

 that she, and consequently those in her, were 

 twice in the most imminent danger of perishing 

 by being plunged into one of the gulfs formed 

 in the rocks and hollows of the rapid. It was 

 in one of those singular and dangerous spots, 

 which partake of the triple character of a fall, 

 rapid, and eddy in the short space of a few yards, 

 that the crew owed their safety solely to an 

 unintentional disobedience of the steersman's 

 directions. The power of the water so far ex- 

 ceeded whatever had been witnessed in any of 

 the other rivers of the country, that the same 

 precautions successfully used elsewhere were 

 weak and unavailing here. The steersman was 

 endeavouring to clear a fall and some sunken 

 rocks on the left, but the man to whom he spoke 

 misunderstood him, and did exactly the reverse \ 



