80 WANDERINGS IN 



FIRST distance from the place, a large tree had fallen into 



JOURNEY. f * -' 



- the river, and in the mean time the canoe was 

 lashed to one of its branches. 



The roaring of the water was dreadful ; it 

 foamed and dashed over the rocks with a tremen- 

 dous spray, like breakers on a lee-shore, threaten- 

 ing destruction to whatever approached it. You 

 would have thought, by the confusion it 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 

 i 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." 



