n like grim death and watch our craft
toss and roll amid the billows, until, like a spirited horse, gradually
yielding to the strain, she would turn her head shoreward. Professor
Kenaston, meanwhile, with tense muscles, bending to the steering-oar,
skilfully guided his charge amid the encompassing rocks and eddies,--the
only quiet figure on the surging flood of the river....

Looking back on these days spent along the river, I recall how each one
was filled with incident and how all were stimulated by the uncertainty
of what lay before us. It is the experience of many that, in recalling
travels of this kind, the pleasant features of the time are remembered
with more distinctness than the trying ones. So in the retrospect of
this journey, many of the incidents, unpleasant at the time, are
softened by time's perspective, while the bright ones stand out in
bolder relief and recur to the memory with pleasure. One awkward
adventure, however, which occurred on the first day on the Mouni Rapids,
I have not yet succeeded in relegating to the realm of forgetfulness.
We were approaching a rocky point, similar to many others we had
encountered, past which the water dashed with angry violence. It was our
custom, on reaching such a place, to first detach the canoe, and then to
shove out the boat obliquely from the still water, to allow her bow to
fairly meet the swifter current. On this occasion, while Montague and I,
facing up-stream, were waiting on the bank above for the signal to
advance, the boat, through some carelessness, was pushed out from the
quiet eddy squarely into the swift water. The full force of the torrent
struck her abeam, and away she swept down-stream like a thing possessed.
Taken unawares, no time was given to throw off the leather straps from
our shoulders, and instantly we were thrown from our feet and dragged
over the rocks into the river by the merciless strength of the flood.
Most fortunately for me, the circular strap slipped over my head as I
was being dragged through the water. Montague's also released itself,
and the runaway sped down-stream a quarter of a mile before stopping. On
clambering up the bank I found Montague stunned and bleeding from a
scalp wound. Aside from some abrasions of the skin, I was none the worse
for the shaking up, and after a brief delay Montague revived, and we
resumed our "tow-path" exercise.

[The climate did not prove as severe as was expected, the
temperature bei