NAKKOAV ESCAPE FOR MY CANOK. 113 



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

 number of planks; they had probably been washed 

 away from some village on the banks. They had floated 

 against a tree, that was stuek 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 

 aUigator. 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 pos- 

 sessed, 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 regain- 

 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- 

 tion, for now, as I approached Louisiana, the land was 

 more occupied. 



Several hundred miles above its junction with the 

 Mississippi, the Great Red river is blocked up by 

 numbers of trees that have been carried down and 

 10* 



