We had made good some five or six hundred yards, when I thought that we might make faster progress on the higher ground, where the water would not be so great an impediment to our progress. I knew also that we should be able to steer our course more or less directly by feeling the direction the water was flowing, so that we might always regain the sea by following down the streams. Accordingly we attempted gradually to gain the higher ground, but as we ascended, we felt the wind blowing with greater force, and were again nearly carried off our legs by it. I had to exert all the energies of my mind not to become totally bewildered. Over rough rocks we climbed, and fallen trunks of trees, and through the beds of streams, down which the fierce waters now rushed foaming and roaring with fearful force, and across swamps and marshes, till at last we reached a grove of tall trees. We could discover no way round it, so I resolved to push through it by a path in which we found ourselves. The trees were bending and writhing, and the loud crashes we heard told us that every instant some were hurled to the ground. Now one fell directly before me, and impeded my progress. I climbed over it, my companion followed, and we continued our course, guided as before by the way the rain beat on our heads and the waters flowed past our feet. Again the thunder rolled loudly and the lightning flashed with startling vividness, casting a horrid glare over the whole scene, now darting amid the lofty boughs, and then snake-like running with loud hisses along the ground. How utterly helpless and insignificant I felt amid the war of the elements. Still onward we must advance. How much farther I could not tell. My companion's frequent shout cheered me. Perhaps trusting to the aid of another made me more careless, for neglecting for an instant to keep my stick feeling the ground before me, I stumbled forward, and found myself floundering in a foaming stream. My cry prevented my companion from falling likewise. Descending more cautiously he rushed into the flood after me, and seizing me by the jacket just as I was being borne down, assisted me to regain my feet, and helped me across, the water being scarcely up to our middles. In another instant I should have been carried helplessly down the stream beyond my depth. We struggled out, I scarcely know how, and pushed on.