ess and
exhausted.

ASSISTED BY THE NATIVES.

The natives, in the meanwhile, resting on their spears, watched us with
earnest attention. One of them, who was sitting close to the water, at
length called to us, and we immediately recognised the deep voice of him
to whose singular interference we were indebted for our escape on the
23rd of January. I desired Hopkinson to swim over to him, and to explain
that we wanted assistance. This was given without hesitation; and we at
length got under the lea of the rock, which I have already described as
being in the centre of the river. The natives launched their bark canoes,
the only frail means they possess of crossing the rivers with their
children. These canoes are of the simplest construction and rudest
materials, being formed of an oblong piece of bark, the ends of which are
stuffed with clay, so as to render them impervious to the water. With
several of these they now paddled round us with the greatest care, making
their spears, about ten feet in length,(which they use at once as poles
and paddles,) bend nearly double in the water. We had still the most
difficult part of the rapid to ascend, where the rush of water was the
strongest, and where the decline of the bed almost amounted to a fall.
Here the blacks could be of no use to us. No man could stem the current,
supposing it to have been shallow at the place, but it was on the contrary
extremely deep. Remaining myself in the boat, I directed all the men to
land, after we had crossed the stream, upon a large rock that formed the
left buttress as it were to this sluice, and, fastening the rope to the
mast instead of her head, they pulled upon it. The unexpected rapidity
with which the boat shot up the passage astonished me, and filled the
natives with wonder, who testified their admiration of so dextrous a
manoeuvre, by a loud shout.

It will, no doubt, have struck the reader as something very remarkable,
that the same influential savage to whom we had already been indebted,
should have been present on this occasion, and at a moment when we so much
needed his assistance. Having surmounted our difficulties, we took leave
of this remarkable man, and pursued our journey up the river.

It may be imagined we did not proceed very far; the fact was, we only
pushed forward to get rid of the natives, for, however pacific, they were
always troublesome, and we were seldom fitted for a trial of temper after
the labours of the day w