The party had two canoes, about forty feet long by two and a half broad, each hollowed out of a single log. The rowers stand up to paddle, having one foot in the bottom of the boat, and the other on the gunwale. There is a man at the bow of the boat to look out for rocks or sunken trees ahead; and a steersman, who stands on a little platform at the stern of the boat, and guides her motions. When the river was smooth, and free from obstruction, they drifted with the current, the men sitting on the trunks and boxes, chatting and laughing with each other; but, when they approached a "bad place," their serious looks, and the firm position in which each one planted himself at his post, showed that work was to be done. When the bark had fairly entered the pass, the rapid gestures of the bow-man, indicating the channel; the graceful position of the steersman, holding his long paddle; and the desperate exertions of the rowers, the railroad rush of the canoes, and the wild screaming laugh of the Indians as the boat shot past the danger,--made a scene so exciting as to banish the sense of danger. After this specimen of their travel, let us take a glimpse of their lodging. "At half-past five, we camped on the beach. The first business of the boatmen, when the canoe is secured, is to go off to the woods, and cut stakes and palm-branches to make a house for the 'commander.' By sticking long poles in the sand, chopping them half-way in two about five feet above the ground, and bending the upper parts together, they make in a few minutes the frame of a little shanty, which, thickly thatched with palm-leaves, will keep off the dew or an ordinary rain. Some bring the drift-wood that is lying about the beach, and make a fire. The provisions are cooked and eaten, the bedding laid down upon the leaves that cover the floor of the shanty, the mosquito nettings spread; and after a cup of coffee, a glass of grog, and a cigar (if they are to be had), everybody retires for the night by eight o'clock. The Indians sleep round the hut, each under his narrow mosquito curtain, which glisten in the moonlight like so many tombstones."