FIRST JOURNEY. 67 



it made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and their whole pro- 

 geny, had left the Mediterranean, and come and settled 

 here. The channel was barely twelve feet wide, and 

 the torrent in rushing down formed transverse 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 stedfastly 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, " niedio tutissimus ibis." 



Shortly after this it rained almost day and night, the 

 Thunder and lightning flashing incessantly, and the roar 

 of thunder awful beyond expression. 



The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on him, 



Fever re- that to all appearance his last day's march 



was over. However, it abated ; his spirits 



rallied, and he marched again ; and after delays and 



inconveniences he reached the house of his worthy 



Reaches Mi- friend Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek, 



bin creek. wWch falls j^ the Demerara. No words 



of his can do justice to the hospitality of that gentleman, 

 whose repeated 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 



