uld set out on longer journeys by land and sea, crossing
the wooded ghats and descending to some old port of historic name,
Cochin or Mangalore or Calicut, white places of old memory, sleeping by
the blue waves as if no Vasco de Gama had ever come sailing up out of
the West to disturb their enchanted slumber. The approach to these
dreamy shores was dark and tumultuous, as if nature had set an
initiation of contrasting toil before the enjoyment of that light and
peace. It followed the bed of a mountain stream, which began in a mere
pleat of the hills, tumbling often in white cascades, and enduring no
boat upon its waters until half its course was run. But here it
challenged man to essay a fall; for where it burst its way over rocky
slopes were channels jeopardous and hardly navigable, sequences of
foaming rapids, races of wild water swirling round opposing boulders,
and careering indignant of restraint between long walls of beetling
rock. Here when the sun had gone down we would embark with a crew of
lithe brown men in a boat hewn from a single tree, seamless and stoutly
fashioned to be the unharmed plaything of such rocks and boisterous
waters as these. In these rapids the river waked to consciousness of
mighty life, tossing our little craft through a riot of dancing waves,
whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in
the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy
plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The
men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with
a miraculous deftness from a projecting boulder, forcing her into a new
course, steadying her as she reeled in the shock and strain of the
conflict, while their long poles bent continually like willow wands
against her battered sides. The steersman stood silent, except when he
shouted above all the din some resonant, eruptive word of command; the
men responded by breathless invocations to their gods, relaxing no tense
sinew until the pent waters rushed out into some broad pool where the
eased stream went brimming silently, gathering new strength in the
darkness of its central deeps.

At such places the moon would perhaps be obscured by passing clouds, and
we would land upon an eyot until she shone once more in a clear heaven.
Stretched at length upon the fine white sand waiting for her return, we
could hear the boom of waters in the distance calling us on to a renewal
of the