122 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
in the branches overhead. Here we held on, the 
Indians using all their efforts to prevent the canoes 
from being smashed by blows from each other or 
from the floating trees which now began to career 
past us like mad bulls. So dense was the gloom 
that we could see nothing, while we were deafened 
by the pelting rain, the roaring flood, and the 
crashing of the branches of the floating trees, as 
they rolled over or dashed against each other ; but 
each lightning-flash revealed to us all the horrors 
of our position. Assuredly I had slight hopes of 
living to see the day, and I shall for ever feel 
grateful to those Indians who, without any orders 
from us, stood through all the rain and storm of 
that fearful night, relaxing not a moment in their 
efforts to save our canoes from being carried away 
by the flood, or dashed to pieces by swinging 
against each other, or against the floating timber. 
As the waters rose higher, the stern of my canoe 
got entangled in overhanging prickly bamboos, 
which threatened to swamp it, and which we with 
some difficulty cut away. Every hour thus passed 
seemed an age, and the coming of day scarcely 
ameliorated our position, for the flood did not abate 
until lo o'clock. About an hour before this, the 
river began to fall a little, and as soon as the rain 
passed we got the cargoes out and carried up to 
the Governor's house. It was past noon ere we got 
breakfast — wearied to death, and myself in a high 
fever, which happily passed off in the following night. 
The river is only 40 yards broad in that place 
(indeed ^before the flood there had not been more 
than 25 yards of water, nowhere 3 feet deep), and 
the rise during the night had been 18 feet. I 
