84 
DANGEROUS NAVIGATION 
time, rendered the navigation perplexing and dangerous. 
We passed reach after reach, presenting the same difficul- 
ties, and were at length obliged to pull up at 5 p.m., having 
a scene of confusion and danger before us that I did not 
dare to encounter with the evening’s light ; for I had not 
only observed that the men’s eye-sight failed them as the 
sun descended, and that they mistook shadows for objects 
under water, and vice-versa, but the channel had become 
so narrow that, although the banks were not of increased 
height, we were involved in comparative darkness, under a 
close arch of trees, and a danger was hardly seen ere we were 
hurried past it, almost without the possibility of avoiding it. 
The reach at the head of which we stopped, was crowded 
with the trunks of trees, the branches of which crossed 
each other in every direction, nor could I hope, after a mi- 
nute examination of the channel, to succeed in taking the 
boats safely down so intricate a passage. 
We rose in the morning with feelings of apprehension, 
and uncertainty ; and, indeed, with great doubts on our 
minds whether we were not thus early destined to witness 
the wreck, and the defeat of the expedition. The men got 
slowly and cautiously into the boat, and placed themselves 
so as to leave no part of her undefended. Hopkinson stood 
at the bow, ready with poles to turn her head from anything 
upon which she might be drifting. Thus prepared, we 
allowed her to go with the stream. By extreme care and 
attention on the part of the men we passed this formidable 
barrier. Hopkinson in particular exerted himself, and more 
