To avoid these entanglements at the sides, it seemed best, on the whole, to keep the boat in mid-channel, though the breakers were far more dangerous there, in the full force of the stream.
I began to think that this must be the "hard place coming," which a wise man farther up the river had warned me was quite too much for so small a boat, unless in flood times, when fewer rocks would be in the way. In reply, I had told him that when we got near such a place I would pull out my boat and drag it along the bank, if requisite. To this he said, "Ah! but the banks are a hundred feet high." So I had mentally resolved (but entirely forgot) to stop in good time and to climb up the rocks and investigate matters ahead before going into an unknown run of broken water.
Such plans are very well in theory, but somehow the approach to these rapids was so gradual, and the mind was so much occupied in overcoming the particular difficulty of each moment, that no opportunity occurred for rest or reflection. The dull heavy roar round the corner got louder as the Rob Roy neared the great bend. For here the river makes a turn round the whole of a letter S, in fact very nearly in a complete figure of 8, and in wheeling thus it glides over a sloping ledge of flat rocks, spread obliquely athwart the stream for a hundred feet on either hand, and just a few inches below the surface.
The canoe was swept over this singular place by the current, its keel and sides grinding and bumping on the stones, and sliding on the soft moss which here made the rock so slippery and black.
The progress was aided by sundry pushes and jerks at proper times, but we advanced altogether in a clumsy, helpless style, until at length there came in sight the great white ridge of tossing foam where the din was great, and a sense of excitement and confusion filled the mind.
I was quite conscious that the sight before me was made to look worse because of the noise around, and by the feeling of the loneliness and powerlessness of a puny man struggling in a waste of breakers, where to strike a single one was sure to upset the boat.
From the nature of the place, too, it was evident that it would be difficult to save the canoe by swimming alongside it when capsized or foundered, and yet it was utterly impossible now to stop.
Right in front, and in the middle, I saw the well-known wave which is always raised when a main stream converges, as it rushes down a narrow neck. The depression or trough of this was about two feet below, and the crest four feet above the level, so the height of the wave was about six feet.
Though rather tall it was very thin and sharp-featured, and always stationary in position, though the water composing it was going at a tremendous pace. After this wave there was another smaller one, as frequently happens.
It was not the height of the wave that gave any concern; had it been at sea the boat would rise over any lofty billow, but here the wave stood still, and the canoe was to be impelled against it with all the force of a mighty stream, and so it must go through the body of water, for it could not have time to rise.