At the upper Cohos the river spreads twenty-four miles wide. For five or six weeks ships of war might sail over the lands that afterward produce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all America. People who can bear the sight, the groans, the tremblings, and surly motion of water, trees, and ice, through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest phenomenons in Nature. Here, water consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration that an iron crow cannot be forced into it; here, iron, lead, and cork, have one common weight; here, steady as time, and harder than marble, the stream passes irresistible, if not swift as lightning; the electric fire rends trees in pieces with no greater ease than does this mighty water. The passage is about four hundred yards in length, and of a zigzag form, with obtuse corners.[32] At high water are carried through this straight masts and other timber with incredible swiftness, and sometimes with safety; but when the water is too low, the masts, timber, and trees, strike on one side or the other, and, though of the largest size, are rent, in one moment, into shivers, and splintered like a broom, to the amazement of spectators. The meadows, for many miles below, are covered with immense quantities of wood thus torn in pieces, which compel the hardiest travellers to reflect, how feeble is man, and how great that Almighty who formed the lightnings, thunders, and the irresistible power and strength of waters! No living creature was ever known to pass through this narrow, except an Indian woman, who was, in a canoe, attempting to cross the river above it, but carelessly suffered herself to fall within the power of the current. Perceiving her danger, she took a bottle of rum she had with her, and drank the whole of it; then lay down in her canoe, to meet her destiny. She marvellously went through safely, and was taken out of the canoe some miles below, quite intoxicated, by some Englishmen. Being asked how she could be so daringly imprudent as to drink such a quantity of rum with the prospect of instant death before her, the squaw, as well as her condition would let her, replied, “Yes, it was too much rum for once, to be sure; but I was not willing to lose a drop of it: so I drank it, and you see I have saved all.”