The last of the rapids Stanley declared to be the wildest stretch of water he had ever seen. For four miles the river looked as if thrown upward by volcanic action beneath and at the same time swept by a fierce hurricane above, and all the while it was dashing madly on at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Huge troughs would be formed, as if the stream was yawning asunder, and then the divided water would come together with a crash, sending up columns twenty feet high to dissolve in foam and spray. The crash of colliding waves and the steady roar of the rapids were awful. It was literally a "hell of waters." The land carriage around this wild stretch was a rough piece of work. Paths of brushwood were made, and the canoes slowly hauled up rocky heights and slid down into deep gullies--the women and children toiling after. They were nearly four days getting around this four miles of impassable rapids. The men were fainting for want of food when smooth water was at last reached. This, however, continued but a short distance, when they had to take to land again and haul their boats over a rocky point for three-quarters of a mile. This task took three days to accomplish. When it is remembered that one of the canoes was eighty-five feet long, and another seventy-five and dug out of a solid tree, we can get some conception of the tremendous effort it required to transport them over rocks and hills. When smooth water was again reached, it gave them only a short respite. Stanley, however, found it necessary to halt and give the people rest, for the tremendous strain of the last week was telling fearfully on them.