An Et cherts Voyage of Discovery. 271 



you are carried along by the impetuous current with a 

 very slight chance either of stopping yourself, if rush- 

 ing upon obvious peril, or of defending yourself against 

 the branches. 



Here we are amongst the willows, carried rapidly 

 down a little sylvan tunnel, three or four feet wide and 

 about a yard high. It is wonderfully beautiful, if one 

 had only the time to appreciate its beauty ; but the cur- 

 rent is so strong and impetuous, and the turns are so 

 numerous, that there is hardly time to think of any thing 

 but the management of the canoe. The little boys are 

 behind somewhere ; I hear their loud chatter in the dis- 

 tance, and a yelping bark from Tom informs me that 

 he is yet alive, though I know not whether in water or 

 on land. 



The first insurmountable obstacle is a young tree, 

 lying quite across the stream. It has not been cut down, 

 but the water has eaten away the earth about its roots, 

 and it has fallen across the current. If the place had 

 been a little more open I might have hauled the canoe 

 on shore and launched her a little lower down, but here 

 the dense underwood makes that manoeuvre impossible. 

 Here come the little boys ! I have a long and strong cord 

 in the canoe ; I tie a stone to one end of it, and throw it 

 over a branch to a boy on the other side, telling him to 

 tie it to the top of the fallen tree. Then, with the branch 

 for a fulcrum, I and the little boys on my side pull very 

 hard, and gradually the little tree rises and rises till the 

 course is clear. After overcoming other difficulties with 

 the help of the little boys, who were exceedingly useful, 



