NARROW ESCAPE FOR MY CANOE. 79 



to a reckoning made afterwards, I must have gone about 

 400 miles in five days. It was not till late in the night 

 that I ran in among the reeds, and slept quietly in iny 

 own property. 



On the day after my departure, I fell in with a num- 

 ber of planks ; they had probably been washed away 

 from some village on the banks. They had floated 

 against a tree, that was stuck fast in the bed of the 

 river. Intending to take them with me, in the hope of 

 making something by their sale, I paddled to the tree, 

 and, in attempting to secure the planks, I over-reached 

 myself; the current carried away the canoe from under 

 me, and in an instant I was in the water, holding on to 

 the bough of the tree, and close to an alligator. Luckily, 

 the beast was as much afraid of me as I of him, and he 

 disappeared under the water. I quickly swung myself 

 on the bough to reach my canoe, but too late, it was 

 already in the full strength of the current, leaving me 

 hanging on the waving bough, with canoe, gun, powder, 

 and all that I possessed, a prey to the waves. I saw 

 perfectly well, at once, that I must either regain my 

 canoe, or perish miserably of starvation, so I let go the 

 bough, and swam with all my might towards the fugitive. 

 It cost a quarter of an hour's desperate exertion before 

 I reached it, and then I had to push her to the bank, in 

 order to get on board, for any attempt to do so in the 

 middle of the stream, would have upset her. In ^gain- 

 ing the canoe I had saved my life. 



When my store of provisions was exhausted, I shot 

 wild fowl, and got them cooked at the nearest planta- 



