AXY THING BUT PLEASANT AMUSEMENT. 
417 
whose turbid wiiters came down to the sea with siicli 
violence as to drift them out more than once after they 
thought themselves securely entered. Upon one of these 
occasions they were cast upon a sand-bank just outside 
of the mouth and narrowly escaped being rolled over, 
so furiously ran tlic current. This was harder work 
than they had bargained for; and, after pulling a half- 
hour or more and making very little progress, they were 
forced to land upon the beach and resort to the process 
of “tracking.” 
This amusement my narrator described as being any 
thing ])ut pleasant; for they found themselves sinking 
over the ankle in the mud at every step, or stumbling 
over loose i>iles of stones which the dai'kness hid from 
view : still, it was better than pulling with the oars all 
night against a current which they could hardly stem, 
and so they hung to it with the determination of neces- 
sity, and were in the end rewarded by arriving at a 
village on the left bank, which they rightly concluded 
to be Taousk. There they were received by the barking 
of dogs, the bellowing of cattle, and, linally, by a score 
of natives, who, after they had been convinced that they 
were not a detachment of the Allies bent upon burning 
their town, received them very kindly, and conducted 
them to the house of the priest, who, it seems, was the 
“headman” in temporal as well as spiritual affairs. 
By this personage they were received more kindly 
than ever, lie got them up a glorious supper of milk, 
butter, brown bread, cold duck, solidified reindeer-milk, 
&c., and, after that was over, drank a half-bottle of 
French punch, which the doctor or Carnes had pre- 
