that it was a continued link of cataracts from one to another, in the
manner of a cascade, only that the falls were sometimes a quarter of a mile
from one another, and the noise confused and frightful.

We thought our voyaging was at a full stop now; but three of us, with a
couple of our negroes, mounting the hills another way, to view the course
of the river, we found a fair channel again after about half a mile's
march, and that it was like to hold us a good way further. So we set all
hands to work, unloaded our cargo, and hauled our canoes on shore, to see
if we could carry them.

Upon examination we found that they were very heavy; but our carpenters,
spending but one day's work upon them, hewed away so much of the timber
from their outsides as reduced them very much, and yet they were as fit to
swim as before. When this was done, ten men with poles took up one of the
canoes and made nothing to carry it. So we ordered twenty men to each
canoe, that one ten might relieve the other; and thus we carried all our
canoes, and launched them into the water again, and then fetched our
luggage and loaded it all again into the canoes, and all in an afternoon;
and the next morning early we moved forward again. When we had towed about
four days more, our gunner, who was our pilot, began to observe that we did
not keep our right course so exactly as we ought, the river winding away a
little towards the north, and gave us notice of it accordingly. However, we
were not willing to lose the advantage of water-carriage, at least not till
we were forced to it; so we jogged on, and the river served us for about
threescore miles further; but then we found it grew very small and shallow,
having passed the mouths of several little brooks or rivulets which came
into it; and at length it became but a brook itself.

We towed up as far as ever our boats would swim, and we went two days the