WARNED BY A RUMBLING NOISE 
long in a straight line, but with a good many rocks strewn 
in the channel. The men paddled unwillingly, as they said 
they were aching all over; but the current was strong, and 
we were going along fairly quickly. My men said that 
we must now have come to the end of all the rapids. I 
did not care to disillusion them, although I suspected that 
we still had hard days in store. We had not proceeded 
very far, in fact, when a rumbling noise warned us that 
we were approaching danger. There was a rapid on the 
east side of the river, but it left a fairly easy passage on 
the west. A little farther, however, we came to a very bad 
rapid, and had to unload the canoe, which we were obliged 
to let down carefully with ropes. My men, who felt 
feverish and irritable, owing to our previous day’s ex¬ 
perience, were greatly upset at this new obstacle facing us. 
The river was 500 metres wide at this part. The 
rocks on which we trod when we took the canoe down 
were so sharp that they cut our feet. It was not possible 
to wear shoes, as when we had them on we slipped on the 
rock and had no hold upon the ropes. My men, in their 
state of weakness, had not sufficient strength to hold the 
canoe, and the moment she entered the swift current she 
escaped, dragging one man into the rapid. I jumped into 
the water after him, and just managed to grab him before 
he was swept away altogether in the terrific current. We 
were all drenched, and as the wind blew with great 
violence that day, and there was no sun to warm us 
up, we felt the cold very much. 
The canoe was thrown mercilessly, now against one 
rock, then against another; but, as luck would have it, 
after she had made several pirouettes, we, running all 
the time with our bleeding feet on the sharp rocks along 
the bank, were eventually able to recapture her at the end 
of the rapid. Then came the job of going back to fetch all 
the baggage and bring it down, baling the water out of 
the canoe, and starting off once more. 
133 
