Imagine some hundreds of acres all of water in white crested waves, varied only by black rocks resisting a struggling torrent, and a loud, thundering roar, mingled with a strange hissing, as the spray from ten thousand sharp-pointed billows is tossed into the air.
And then you are alone, too, and the banks are high, and you have a precious boat to guard.
While there was time to do it I stood up in my boat to survey, but it was a mere horizon of waves, and nothing could be learned from looking. Then I coasted towards one side where the shrubs and trees hanging in the water brushed the paddle, and seemed so safe because they were on shore.
The rapids of Bremgarten could probably be passed most easily by keeping to the edge, though with much delay and numerous "getting outs," but an attempt now to go along the side in this way was soon shown to be useless, for presently I came to a lofty rock jutting out into the stream, and the very loud roar behind it fortunately attracted so much attention that I pulled into the bank, made the boat fast, and mounted through the thicket to the top of the cliff.
I saw at once that to try to pass by this rock in any boat would be madness, for the swiftest part of the current ran right under the projecting crag, and then wheeled round and plunged over a height of some feet into a pool of foam, broken fragments, and powerful waves.
Next, would it be just possible to float the boat past the rock while I might hold the painter from above? The rock on careful measurement was found too high for this.
To see well over the cliff I had to lie down on my face, and the pleasant curiosity felt at first, as to how I should have to act, now gradually sickened into the sad conviction, "Impossible!" Then was the time to turn with earnest eyes to the wide expanse of the river, and see if haply, somewhere at least, even in the middle, a channel might be traced. Yes, there certainly was a channel, only one, very far out, and very difficult to hit upon when you sit in a boat quite near the level of the water; but the attempt must be made, or stay,—might I not get the boat carried round by land? Under the trees far off were men who might be called to help, labourers quietly working, and never minding me. I was tempted, but did not yield.
For a philosophical thought had come upmost, that, after all, the boat had not to meet every wave and rock now visible, and the thousand breakers dashing around, but only a certain few which would be on each side in my crooked and untried way; of the rocks in any one line—say fifty of them between me and any point—only two would become a new danger in crossing that line.
Then again, rapids look worse from the shore than they really are, because you see all their difficulties at once, and you hear the general din. On the other hand, waves look much smaller from the bank (being half hidden by others) than you find them to be when the boat is in the trough between two. The hidden rocks may make a channel which looks good enough from the land, to be quite impracticable when you attempt it in the water.
Lastly, the current is seen to be swifter from the shore where you can observe its speed from a fixed point, than it seems when you are in the water where you notice only its velocity in relation to the stream on each side, which is itself all the time running at four or five miles an hour. But it is the positive speed of the current that ought really to be considered, for it is by this the boat will be urged against a breaker stationary in the river.