f me, I let go the trunk, and,
in conjunction with another man, got hold of the boom, (which, with the
gaff, sails, &c., had been detached from the mast, to make room for the
cargo,) and floated off. I had just time to grasp this boom, when we
were hurried into the Cascades; in these I was instantly buried, and
nearly suffocated. On rising to the surface, I found one of my hands
still on the boom, and my companion also adhering to the gaff. Shortly
after descending the Cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards,
floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in
one end of it; the violence of the water, and the falling out of the
casks of ashes, had quite wrecked it. For a long time I contented myself
with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I
at length effected; and from this, my new situation, I called out to my
companion, who still preserved his hold of the gaff. He shook his head;
and, when the waves suffered me to look up again, he was gone. He made
no attempt to come near me, being unable or unwilling to let go his
hold, and trust himself to the waves, which were then rolling over his
head.

The Cascades are a kind of fall, or rapid descent, in the river, over a
rocky channel below: going down is called, by the French, "Sauter," to
leap or shove the cascades. For two miles below, the channel continues
in uproar, just like a storm at sea; and I was frequently nearly washed
off the barge by the waves which rolled over. I now entertained no hope
whatever of escaping; and although I continued to exert myself to hold
on, such was the state to which I was reduced by cold, that I wished
only for speedy death, and frequently thought of giving up the contest
as useless. I felt as if compressed into the size of a monkey; my hands
appeared diminished in size one-half; and I certainly should (after I
became cold and much exhausted) have fallen asleep, but for the waves
that were passing over me, and obliged me to attend to my situation. I
had never descended the St. Lawrence before, but I knew there were more
rapids a-head, perhaps another set of the Cascades, but at all events
the La Chine rapids, whose situation I did not exactly know. I was in
hourly expectation of these putting an end to me, and often fancied some
points of ice extending from the shore to be the head of foaming rapids.
At one of the moments in which the succession of waves permitted me to
look up, I sa