CROSSING THE RED RIVER. 233 



worth relating and found the water low, so, notwithstanding 

 it abounds with quicksands, we began to cross at once. It was 

 here about a hundred yards wide with a sandy bottom and 

 very muddy water, and soon after entering it the mules sank 

 in a quicksand, and after straggling for a few moments quietly 

 lay down and refused to pull any more. We unharnessed 

 them with a great deal of trouble, made them rise and got 

 them out of the river, and then tried to draw the waggon out 

 backwards, but it had sunk till the bottom of it rested on the 

 sand, and it would not move ; the mules, too, were demoralized 



and would not do their best. So F rode to a ranche, 



which we had passed some three hours previously, and 

 returned bringing the owner and three span of good oxen. 

 Fortunately it was still only midday, so that we had plenty of 



time before us. While F was away we all stripped, and 



with nothing but our hats on unloaded the waggon, carry- 

 ing everything over on our heads ; and if one of my readers 

 will take a sack of flour weighing a hundred pounds, or a 

 portmanteau of about the same weight, on his head, and will 

 wade a river a hundred yards wide under a broiling sun, and 

 keep this up for two hours, he will know whether we had a 



pleasant task or not ; but by the time F returned, all our 



things, including a heavy stove, were piled on the opposite 

 bank. We first had our dinner and then, following the advice 

 of the owner of the oxen, we dug away the sand as much as 

 possible from round the wheels of the waggon and the 

 digging under water was very hard work ; then we fastened a 

 rope to the hind axle and brought the end of it on to the 

 bank, the waggon being about twenty yards from the edge of 

 the water. The oxen were fastened to this rope and the whip 



