An Arduous Task
Five of the redskins climbed up to the cliff-top carrying a tow-line, and the remaining one stayed behind to steer.
Barnes and Colton were for accompanying the Indians; but when he came to face the six-foot leap over that roaring torrent, the clergyman, who was no longer young or very active, felt that in his case it would be sheer suicide to attempt the jump; and he stayed behind with the steersman. In so doing he well knew that he was not choosing the safer course. For, the moment the mooring rope was removed, the boat began to kick frightfully, and water was soon streaming over her bows. He caught up a copper pot and began baling for dear life, till the sweat ran out of him and his arms grew weary, and till the water had ceased to flow in. Then he looked up at the other men; 315 there they were, fifty or sixty feet above him, straining like horses going uphill, in their effort to fight the current below. What wonder that he looked almost despairingly at the tow-line—a wretched contrivance hastily rigged up by joining together all the ropes and thongs that the canoe contained? How long was it going to stand the mere strain, let alone the sawing and chafing that it must get from every abutting rock? At such a time a man can do no more than keep a stiff upper lip, and humbly leave his fate in the Hands that, for wise purposes, made Nature at once as beautiful and as terrible as she is.
Suddenly the rector was aroused by the chief’s voice.
“Can paddle! Yes! You see!”
The men at the top had paused for breath, but the line was no longer so horribly taut, and the fact that the chief was beginning to propel the boat at least sufficiently to cause the rope very soon to sag, showed that the worst was over. In due time she was towed as far as the low bank and the six men were taken aboard; but Mr. Colton never again trusted himself down a strange river with canoemen who knew no more about it than he.
CHAPTER XXV
A WALK ABOUT URUGUAY
Taken as a whole the Indians of Uruguay are—and have ever been—a brave but peace-loving people, engaged principally in sheep and cattle-rearing. No doubt the mildness of their character and pursuits is largely due to considerations which are purely geographical; for the sea and the Uruguay River together make the country almost an island, to which the Argentine and Brazilian Indians would never venture to penetrate. Further, there are—apart from the native cattle—no large or fierce wild animals.