428 
AN ATI DAS. 
tossed down the rocky rapids, did not allow us to think 
of many promising spots. I must tell you the kind of 
thing. Fancy a long narrow boat, high in front like a 
Roman galley, that it may not dive right under water in 
descending the falls, the sides lashed up with additional 
planks to keep out the great waves. Three sturdy boat¬ 
men rowing with all their might, their faces pale from the 
more than ordinary risk, the steersman leaning forward 
as he stands with one foot advanced, his brow knit, his 
eye as quick as an eagle’s whilst he feels his broad paddle, 
on the least touch or the most powerful turn of which 
the safety of us all depends, I and my servant lad lying 
on the deer skins at the bottom, used as I have been to 
boats, knowing that now I am utterly helpless, biting my 
lips as the stones seem to whisk by like cannon balls, with 
which the slightest contact would send us all to eternity, 
whilst the boat now turns on one side, now rears into the 
air, and now takes a plunge that quite lifts one’s heart 
out of its place, amidst the rush and the roar and the 
foam, scarcely feeling the icy water which is rushing 
under our backs. After one of these passages, my ears 
ringing in the sudden stillness, and my eyes resting on 
the delightful calm, our boat was drawn to the shore to 
be baled out, when one of the men said there was a piece 
of water which he knew to be the breeding place of 
several birds only a hundred fathoms or so from where 
we were. Shouldering Lieutenant Halkett’s cloak boat, 
I was soon on the promised spot. A pair of Scaup Ducks 
that rose as we appeared above the bank, was a very 
hopeful sign. The place was scarcely bigger than an 
English duck pond; it had some beds of bullrushes and 
reeds, and there were several tempting sedgy islets, each 
of a few feet only in circumference, some high, some low, 
whilst the water was shallow and well warmed by the 
