where it rushed over hidden rocks, and in the centre was a wave about three
feet high, that rose like a curve of clear green glass, but turned white
with anger, and broke into furious foam, as it fell into the basin below.
Having ascertained that the rock was sufficiently under water, I decided
that we would take our chance in the current after turning out the baggage.

We kept right in the centre. It was an exciting moment as we touched the
wave. The canoe made a bound upwards, then plunged into the boiling torrent
below. A moment more and we were out of all risk. So swift was the passage
that scarcely a gallon of water was taken in. Having put the baggage back,
we continued our voyage towards the unknown, for I knew not whither this
stream was going to take us. About a mile or two farther down, however, it
joined the river, which here seemed very wide. It was marvellous to find
that the brook of yesterday had grown to this; a circumstance to be
explained, however, by the number of springs that rise in its bed.

The scene was beyond all description beautiful. The wooded banks, the calm
water, the islands of reeds and sedges, the pure white lilies that scented
the air and murmured softly as the boat brushed their snowy petals, were
all stained with the blood of the dying sun. For a moment I saw the upper
rim of the red disc between the trunks of two trees far away that seemed to
grow taller and more sombre; then came the twilight with its purple tones.

The colours faded, darkness crept over the valley, and the water, losing
its transparency, looked unfathomably deep, and mirrored with tenfold power
all the fantastic gloom of the leaning alders, and the weird forms of the
hoary willows. And there was no light or sound from any town or village,
nor even from a lonely cottage. I had expected to reach at sundown the
little town of Aubeterre, in the department of the Charente, but all ideas
of distance based upon a map are absurdly within the mark when one follows