72 
WANDERINGS IN 
FIRST 
JOURNEY. 
Thunder 
and light¬ 
ning. 
being in the canoe’s favour. At a little distance 
from the place, a large tree had fallen into the river, 
and in the mean time the canoe was lashed to one 
of its branches. 
The roaring of the water was dreadful; it foamed 
and dashed over the rocks with a tremendous spray, 
like breakers on a lee-shore, threatening destruction 
to whatever approached it. You would have thought, 
by the confusion it caused in the river, and the 
whirlpools it made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and 
their whole progeny, had left the Mediterranean, 
and come and settled here. The channel was barely 
twelve feet wide, and the torrent in rushing down 
formed transverse furrows, which showed how near 
the rocks were to the surface. 
Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian who 
steered the canoe. He looked steadfastly at it, then 
at the rocks, then cast an eye on the channel, and 
then looked at the canoe again. It was in vain to 
speak. The sound was lost in the roar of waters; 
but his eye showed that he had already passed it in 
imagination. He held up his paddle in a position, 
as much as to say, that he would keep exactly amid 
channel; and then made a sign to cut the bush-rope 
that held the canoe to the fallen tree. The canoe 
drove down the torrent with inconceivable rapidity. 
It did not touch the rocks once all the way. The 
Indian proved to a nicety, u medio tutissimus ibis.” 
Shortly after this it rained almost day and night, 
the lightning flashing incessantly, and the roar of 
thunder awful beyond expression. 
