122 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



in the branches overhead. Here we held on, the 

 Indians using all their efforts to prevent the canoes 

 from being smashed by blows from each other or 

 from the floating trees which now began to career 

 past us like mad bulls. So dense was the gloom 

 that we could see nothing, while we were deafened 

 by the pelting rain, the roaring flood, and the 

 crashing of the branches of the floating trees, as 

 they rolled over or dashed against each other ; but 

 each lightning-flash revealed to us all the horrors 

 of our position. Assuredly I had slight hopes of 

 living to see the day, and I shall for ever feel 

 grateful to those Indians who, without any orders 

 from us, stood through all the rain and storm of 

 that fearful night, relaxing not a moment in their 

 efforts to save our canoes from being carried away 

 by the flood, or dashed to pieces by swinging 

 against each other, or against the floating timber. 

 As the waters rose higher, the stern of my canoe 

 got entangled in overhanging prickly bamboos, 

 which threatened to swamp it, and which we with 

 some difficulty cut away. Every hour thus passed 

 seemed an age, and the coming of day scarcely 

 ameliorated our position, for the flood did not abate 

 until 10 o'clock. About an hour before this, the 

 river began to fall a little, and as soon as the rain 

 passed we got the cargoes out and carried up to 

 the Governor's house. It was past noon ere we got 

 breakfast wearied to death, and myself in a high 

 fever, which happily passed off in the following night. 

 The river is only 40 yards broad in that place 

 (indeed L before the flood there had not been more 

 than 25 yards of water, nowhere 3 feet deep), and 

 the rise during the night had been 18 feet. I 



