we were not as satisfied with these things as we should have
been; what we wanted were fires to cook by and dry ourselves
by, and all that sort of thing. The Erd-geist did
not understand, and so left us when the afterglow had died
away, with only enough starlight to see the flying foam of
the rapids ahead and around us, and not enough to see the
great trees that had fallen from the bank into the water.
These, when the rapids were not too noisy, we could listen
for, because the black current rushes through their branches
with an impatient “ lish, swish ” ; but when there was a rapid
roaring close alongside we ran into those trees, and got ourselves
mauled, and had ticklish times getting on our course
again. 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 v i 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
intc 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. We
sorted ourselves out hastily and sent her at it again. Smash
went a sorely tried pole and a paddle. Round and round we
spun in an exultant whirlpool, which, in a light-hearted,
maliciously joking way, hurled us tail first out of it into the
current. Now the grand point in these canoes of having
both ends alike declared itself; for at this juncture all we had
to do was to revolve on our own axis and commence life
anew with what had been the bow for the stern. Of course
we were defeated, we could not go up any further without
the aid of our lost poles and paddles, so we had to go down
for shelter somewhere, anywhere, and down at a terrific pace
in the white water we went. While hitched among the rocks
the arrangement of our crew had been altered, Pierre joining
M’bo in the bows ; this piece of precaution was frustrated by
our getting turned round ; so our position was what you might
call precarious, until we got into another whirlpool, when we
persuaded nature to start us right end on. This was only a
matter of minutes, whirlpools being plentiful, and then M’bo and
Pierre, provided with our surviving poles, stood in the bows to-
fend us off rocks, as we shot towards them ; while we midship-
paddles sat, helping to steer, and when occasion arose, which
occasion did with lightning rapidity, to whack the whirlpools
with the flat of our paddles, to break their force. Cook
crouched in the stern concentrating his mind on steering
only. A most excellent arrangement in theory and the safest
practical one no doubt, but it did not work out what you
might call brilliantly w e ll; though each department did its
best. We dashed full tilt towards high rocks, things twenty to
fifty feet above water. Midship backed and flapped like fury ;
M’bo and Pierre received the shock on their poles; sometimes
we glanced successfully aside and flew on ; sometimes we
didn’t. The shock being too much for M’bo and Pierre they
were driven back on me, who got flattened on to the cargo of
bundles which, being now firmly tied in, couldn’t spread the
confusion further a f t ; but the shock of the canoe’s nose
against the rock did so in style, and the rest of the crew fell
forward on to the bundles, me, and themselves. So shaken up
together were we several times that night, that it’s a wonder