In the meantime I had gone exploring the rapids endeavouring to find a more suitable channel. Eventually, on the east side of the stream, I found a place where we could take the canoe down. There too was a fall of 9 ft., down which we let the canoe with considerable difficulty; then it had to pass over a number of smaller terraces and down winding channels, where we sweated for some hours before we got through our work. Innumerable channels separated by sand-mounds 20 to 30 ft. high had formed along that rapid and also through the vertical wall of cutting volcanic rock which formed a barrier across the stream. Below the fall were two long sand-banks, one with some burity palms upon it.
The river flowed 20° west of north for some 4,000 m. We had gone but 2,000 m. of that distance when we came to another rocky barrier, spreading from south-west to north-east, on approaching which we heard the thundering roaring of another rapid. On the left bank we had a hill range all along. The noise of the rapid got louder and louder, and we were soon confronted by a terrifying rush of water at a spot where three arms of the river met with such force that the clashing waters shot up in the air, forming a wave some 40 or 50 ft. high with a foaming crest. The backwash from this great wave was so violent against the rocky banks of the river—very narrow there—that it was quite impossible for the canoe, even empty, to be let down by means of ropes.
My men were in absolute despair, for the farther we went the more insurmountable became the obstacles which confronted us. They said they had agreed to go on a journey of exploration, but surely I was taking them direct to Hades—if we had not got there already. I could not well contradict them, for certainly that particular spot was the nearest possible approach to it.
It does not do ever to lose courage. While my men, in the lowest state of depression, sat on the volcanic rocks, I went about exploring on the right bank until I found a place where the river had eroded a channel but had afterwards filled it with an immense accumulation of rocks. If we could only move those rocks away—several hundreds of them—I saw that it would be possible to push the canoe along the channel which would thus be formed. The work would require a great deal of hard labour.
A Most Dangerous Rapid navigated by Author and his Men.
You should have seen the faces of my men when I took them to the spot and asked them to remove all the big boulders. In order to set them a good example, I myself started moving the rocks about, the smaller ones for preference. We worked and worked hour after hour, jamming our fingers and feet all the time as we pushed the rocks to one side and the other of the little channel, only 4 ft. wide, which we were making. The language of my men was pretty enough, but as long as they worked I had to put up with it. Alcides, who was really a great worker, and whose principal fault was that he would never save himself, worked with tremendous vigour that day. Somehow or other the men seemed to think the work hard.
When we had taken the canoe safely to the end of the rapid through the channel we had cleared, I went back to the top of the rapid to gaze once more on the wonderful sight where the two principal channels met. The water dashed against a rock in the centre with most impressive fury.
On returning to the bottom of the rapid where I had left the canoe, another most impressive sight was to be seen. In the vertiginous waters emerging from the channel high waves—most unpleasant-looking and in the greatest confusion—clashed against one another for a distance of over 500 m. below the rapid.