100 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



caused in the river, and the whirlpools it made, 

 that Scylla and Charybdis, and their whole 

 progeny, had left the Mediterranean, and come 

 and settled here. The channel was barely twelve 

 feet wide, and the torrent in rushing down formed 

 traverse furrows, which showed how near the 

 rocks were to the surface. 



Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian 

 who steered the canoe. He looked steadfastly 

 at it, then at the rocks, then cast an eye on the 

 channel, and then looked at the canoe again. It 

 was in vain to speak. The sound was lost in the 

 roar of waters; but his eye showed that he had 

 already passed it in imagination. He held up 

 his paddle in a position, as much as to say, that 

 he would keep exactly amid channel; and then 

 made a sign to cut the bush rope that held the 

 canoe to the fallen tree. The canoe drove down 

 the torrent with inconceivable rapidity. It did 

 not touch the rocks once all the way. The Indian 

 proved to a nicety, ''medio tutissimus ibis." 



Shortly after this it rained almost day and 

 night, the lightning flashing incessantly, and the 

 roar of thunder awful beyond expression., 



The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on 

 him, that to all appearance his last day's march 

 was over. However, it abated ; his spirits rallied, 

 and he marched again; and after delays and 

 inconveniences he reached the house of his worthy 

 friend, Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek, which 

 falls into the Demerara. No words of his can 

 do justice to the hospitality of that gentleman, 

 whose repeated encounters with the hostile ne- 

 groes in the forest have been publicly rewarded, 



