In other cases the river, which had splayed out its width to that of the Thames at Hungerford, would suddenly narrow its size to a six-foot passage, and rush down that with a "whishhh!" The Rob Roy cheerily sped through these, but I landed to scan the course before attempting the most difficult cuts.--Oh how lonely it was! A more difficult vagary to cope with was when in a dozen petty streams the water tumbled over as many little cascades, and only one was passable--sometimes not one. The interest of finding these, examining, trying, failing, and succeeding, was a continuous delight, and filled up every mile with a series of exciting incidents, till at length the rocks were done. And now we enter a vast plain, with the stream bending round on itself, and hurrying swiftly on through the innumerable islands, eddies, and "snags," or trees uprooted, sticking in the water. At the most critical part of this labyrinth we were going a tremendous pace, when suddenly we came to a fork in the river, with the volumes of water going down both channels nearly equal. We could not descend by one of these because a tree would catch the mast, so I instantly turned into the other, when up started a man and shouted impetuously that no boat could pass by _that_ course. It was a moment of danger, but I lowered the sails in that moment, took down my mast, and, despite stream and gale, I managed to paddle back to the proper channel. As no man had been seen for hours before, the arrival of this warning note was opportune. A new amusement was invented to-day--it was to pitch out my empty wine-bottle and to watch its curious bobbings and whirlings as the current carried it along, while I floated near and compared the natural course taken by the bottle with the selected route which intelligence gave to the Rob Roy. Soon the bottle became impersonated, and we were racing together, and then a sympathy began for its well-known cork as it plumped down when its bottom struck a stone--for the bottle drew more water than my canoe--and every time it grounded there came a loud and melancholy clink of the glass, and down it went. The thick bushes near the river skirted it now for miles, and at one place I could see above me, through the upper branches, about 20 haymakers, men and women, who were honestly working away, and therefore had not observed my approach. I resolved to have a bit of fun here, so we closed in to the bank, but still so as to see the industrious group. Then suddenly I began in a very loud voice with-- "Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves."