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but light and hollow. I made my raft entirely of them, binding bundles of them at right angles to each other, neatly and strongly, with strips from the leaves of the same plant, and tying other rods across. It took me all day till nearly four o’clock to make; but I had still enough daylight to cross, and proceeded to do so.

I had selected a place where the river got broad and comparatively still, some seventy or eighty yards above a furious rapid. At this spot I had built my raft. I now launched it, made my swag fast to the middle, and got on to it myself, keeping in my hand one of the longest blossom stalks, so that I might punt myself across as long as the water was shallow enough to let me do so. I got on pretty well for twenty or thirty yards from the shore, but even in this short space, I nearly upset my raft, by shifting too rapidly from one side to the other. The water then became much deeper, and I leaned over so far in order to get the bloom rod to the bottom, that I had to stay still, leaning on the rod for a few seconds. Then, when I lifted up the rod from the ground, the current was too much for me, and I found myself being carried down the rapid. Everything in a second flew past me, and I had no more control over my raft; neither can I remember anything at all save a flying over furious waters, which in the end upset me. But it all came right, for I found myself near the shore, not more than up to my knees in the water, and pulling my raft to land, fortunately upon the left bank of the river, which was the one I wanted. How I had got there I do not know, but I was there, and not more than a mile or so below the point from