Now And Again We Ran Up
Against Great Rocks Sticking Up In The Black Water - Grim, Isolated
Fellows, Who Seemed To Be Standing Silently Watching Their Fellow
Rocks Noisily Fighting In The Arena Of The White Water.
Still on we
poled and paddled.
About 8 P.M. we came to a corner, a bad one; but
we were unable to leap on to the bank and haul round, not being able
to see either the details or the exact position of the said bank,
and we felt, I think naturally, disinclined to spring in the
direction of such bits of country as we had had experience of during
the afternoon, with nothing but the aid we might have got from a
compass hastily viewed by the transitory light of a lucifer match,
and even this would not have informed us how many tens of feet of
tree fringe lay between us and the land, so we did not attempt it.
One must be careful at times, or nasty accidents may follow. We
fought our way round that corner, yelling defiance at the water, and
dealt with succeeding corners on the vi et armis plan, breaking,
ever and anon, a pole. About 9.30 we got into a savage rapid. We
fought it inch by inch. The canoe jammed herself on some barely
sunken rocks in it. We shoved her off over them. She tilted over
and chucked us out. The rocks round being just awash, we survived
and got her straight again, and got into her and drove her
unmercifully; she struck again and bucked like a broncho, and we
fell in heaps upon each other, but stayed inside that time - the men
by the aid of their intelligent feet, I by clinching my hands into
the bush rope lacing which ran round the rim of the canoe and the
meaning of which I did not understand when I left Talagouga.
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