WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 149 



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. How- 

 ever, 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 re- 

 peated encounters with the hostile negroes in the forest 

 have been publicly rewarded, and will be remembered in 

 the colony for years to come. 



Here he learned that an eruption had taken place in St. 

 Vincent's; and thus the noise heard in the night of the 

 first of May, which had caused such terror amongst the 

 Indians, and made the garrison at Fort St. Joachim re- 

 main under arms the rest of the night, is accounted for. 



