wilder, I decided to stop until daylight. I crept
cautiously in shore until I found an opening and there landed. There was
no wood to build a fire and I laid for several hours in my dress. At
daybreak I resumed the voyage and it looked as though I was penetrating
the very bowels of the mountains, whose crests loomed high in the sky.
I soon discovered the cause of the roar that had arrested my progress
the night before. It was an ugly rapid, madly fighting sharp, broken
rocks and I was dashed in amongst them. In trying to make a passage to
escape a back water, something like that I had gone through on the Arno,
at Florence, I turned so quickly that the little tender was thrown into
the vortex on one side, tearing loose from my belt, while I was rapidly
carried down the other. I never saw her again and what was more, I was
left without provisions of any kind.

"That afternoon the river increased in speed and, dashed along at a mad
rate. Once in a while, as I wheeled around some sharp bend, I could hear
a sullen roar that plainly indicated the presence of falls below; but it
seemed so far away that I paid but little attention to it. I kept
driving steadily along, enjoying the exhilaration of the rapid pace,
when my attention was attracted by the report of a gun. Looking up I saw
a guarda civil, the gendarme of Spain, who held his carbine aloft and
vigorously waved his hat with the other hand as I shot by. The
current increased and the roar below became more audible. Going around
another bend I saw a number of people on the bank waving their hats
with a downward motion. That is the signal used in Spain when you are
desired to approach. I misunderstood it, and thought it meant for me to
take the other side, which I did and found I was in a current from which
I could not extricate myself. Another sharp, turn and the village of
Puente del Arzobispo came into sight with the heavy spray from the falls
rising high in the air. The roar was like the deep rumbling of thunder
when near at hand. I paid no attention to the shouts of the people to
stop, for I saw could not possibly get out of the current, so I exerted
myself to pass the falls safely. I saw where the water sank on the
brink and I knew that was the course of the channel, and I also knew
that my only chance of safety was to reach that point. All my energies
were directed to it and in an instant I was on the brink of, a series
of falls, tum