82 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



huge ridge of tossing, swelling water. What lay- 

 below I knew not ; how steep the fall, or on what 

 bottom I should land. In rapids, John had told 

 me, the wildest water was the safest, and so I 

 steered straight for the highest swell of water and 

 the whitest foam. Fancy a current, rods in width, 

 converging as it glides, until the mass of rushing 

 water is brought as into an eaves-trough five feet 

 across, with sharp, jutting rocks for sides, where 

 the compressed water flings itself wildly up, in- 

 dignant at the restraint put upon it; and then 

 fancy yourself in a boat weighing but seventy 

 pounds, gliding down with a swiftness almost 

 painful into the narrow funnel through which, 

 bursting, you must shoot a fall you cannot see, 

 but whose roar rises heavily over the dash of the 

 torrent, and you can realize what it is to shoot the 

 rapids of the Eacquette Eiver, and my position at 

 the time. 



Balancing myself nicely on the seat, dipping 

 the oar-blades until their lower edges brushed 

 along the tide, I kept my eyes steadily upon the 

 narrow aperture, and let her glide, l^othing but 

 the pressure of the air upon the cheek, as the face 

 clove it, and the sharp whistling of the seething 

 current, bespeaks the swiftness with which you 

 move. When near the narrow gorge, — which 

 you must take square in the centre, and in direct 

 line, or smash your boat to flinders, — while the 



