and even for country boats the service is one of some
danger. The journey up-stream is then sometimes of
three weeks’ duration ; the descent is a matter of six
hours, so fierce is the current. A traveller who made
both journeys at a comparatively quiet season has left
of the journey up-stream the following account :
A T SENBO : TH E R IV E R MEASURE
“ The scenery throughout this defile is sublimely grand
and picturesque, but in places awful to contemplate as
one stands watching the trackers, encouraging one another
by fiendish yells that echo through the woods and
straining every muscle to gain ground as the boat
sluggishly quivers through the fierce rapids now running
flush with the boat’s gunwale. All now depends on
164
the trueness of the towing-line : that gone and we are
lost, for the best and strongest swimmer could not live
in such places.” Returning in March, three months
later, the journey was even more fruitful in excitement :
“ The danger of the defile had in no way been ex-
aggerated. Indeed, as we shot down the impetuous
stream, every moment seemed to be our last. It was
with difficulty the helmsmen kept the boats from being
carried round by the violent eddies and whirlpools, and
the boatmen rowed their strongest against stream to
reduce the terrific pace at which: we were being borne
by the fierce rapids. Our position was too critical to
admit of accurate observation.”
These are fearful joys to which the present-day
traveller is not subjected ; yet, for the seeker after it,
the swift delirium o f a race down the river in its
turbulent season is an attainable joy any time between
May and October. The river, restricted in this portion
of its course to a narrow rocky channel, assumes again,
though in a less transparent degree, the pure green
tint which characterises it at Myitkina. On each hand
the nobly wooded hills run down in échelon to the river’s
edge, and there is at all times that play of colour
characteristic of hills piled behind one another in receding
distances.
At frequent intervals the hills send down their
tribute to the river in streamlets that babble over great
polished boulders and gleam and sparkle in the sunlight.
This is their season of security and charm. In
the rain season their music swells to a deafening roar as
165