slowly into the sitting position, their hair dishevelled, their
caps awry, their eyes alternately winking very hard and staring awfully
in the vain effort to keep open, and their whole physiognomy wearing an
expression of blank stupidity that is peculiar to man when engaged in
that struggle which occurs each morning as he endeavours to disconnect
and shake off the entanglement of nightly dreams and the realities of
the breaking day. Throughout the whole camp there was a low, muffled
sound, as of men moving lazily, with broken whispers and disjointed
sentences uttered in very deep, hoarse tones, mingled with confused,
unearthly noises, which, upon consideration, sounded like prolonged
yawns. Gradually these sounds increased, for the guide's _leve_ is
inexorable, and the voyageur's fate inevitable.

"Oh dear!--yei a--a--ow" (yawning); "hang your _leve_!"

"Oui, vraiment--yei a--a--ow--morbleu!"

"Eh, what's that? Oh, misere."

"Tare an' ages!" (from an Irishman), "an' I had only got to slaape yit!
but--yei a--a--ow!"

French and Irish yawns are very similar, the only difference being, that
whereas the Frenchman finishes the yawn resignedly, and springs to his
legs, the Irishman finishes it with an energetic gasp, as if he were
hurling it remonstratively into the face of Fate, turns round again and
shuts his eyes doggedly--a piece of bravado which he _knows_ is useless
and of very short duration.

"Leve! leve!! leve!!!" There was no mistake this time in the tones of
Louis's voice. "Embark, embark! vite, vite!"

The subdued sounds of rousing broke into a loud buzz of active
preparation, as the men busied themselves in bundling up blankets,
carrying down camp-kettles to the lake, launching the boats, kicking up
lazy comrades, stumbling over and swearing at fallen trees which were
not visible in the cold, uncertain light of the early dawn, searching
hopelessly, among a tangled conglomeration of leaves and broken branches
and crushed herbage, for lost pipes and missing tobacco-pouches.

"Hollo!" exclaimed Harry Somerville, starting suddenly from his sleeping
posture, and unintentionally cramming his elbow into Charley's mouth, "I
declare they're all up and nearly ready to start."

"That's no reason," replied Charley, "why you should knock out all my
front teeth, is it?"

Just then Mr Park issued from his tent, dressed and ready to step into
his boat. He first gave a glance round the camp, to see that all the