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386 



AUDUBON 



opposed their progress, and rushed in foaming waves 

 among the timbers that everywhere blocked up the pas- 

 sage. Presently a slow, heavy motion was perceived in 

 the mass of logs; one might have imagined that some 

 mighty monster lay convulsively writhing beneath them, 

 struggling with a fearful energy to extricate himself from 

 the crushing weight. As the waters rose, this movement 

 increased ; the mass of timber extended in all directions, 

 appearing to become more and more entangled each mo- 

 ment ; the logs bounced against each other, thrusting aside, 

 demersing, or raising into the air those with which they 

 came in contact; it seemed as if they were waging a war 

 of destruction, such as ancient authors describe the efiforts 

 of the Titans, the foamings of whose wrath might to the 

 eye of the painter have been represented by the angry 

 curlings of the waters, while the tremulous and rapid 

 motions of the logs, which at times reared themselves 

 almost perpendicularly, might by the poet have been 

 taken for the shakings of the confounded and discomfited 

 giants. 



Now the rushing element filled up the gorge to its brim. 

 The logs, once under way, rolled, reared, tossed, and tum- 

 bled amid the foam, as they were carried along. Many 

 of the smaller trees broke across, from others great splinters 

 were sent up, and all were in some degree seamed and 

 scarred. Then in tumultuous majesty swept along the 

 mingled wreck, the current being now increased to such a 

 pitch that the logs, as they were dashed against the rocky 

 shores, resounded like the report of distant artillery, or the 

 angry rumblings of the thunder. Onward it rolls, the 

 emblem of wreck and ruin, destruction and chaotic strife. 

 It seemed to me as if I witnessed the rout of a vast army, 

 surprised, overwhelmed, and overthrown. Tlie roar of 

 the cannon, the groans of the dying, and the shouts of the 

 avengers were thundering through my brain, and amid the 

 frightful confusion of the scene, there came over my spirit 



