After a few days’ slow and monotonous voyaging, being again frequently obliged to stop in order to repair our leaky craft, we decided to try a night journey once more. The night was clear and starlight, but in the course of an hour or two ominous clouds began to roll up from the west, and the darkness increased. We went on, however, hoping that there would be no storm. But before long, suddenly, as it seemed to us, the darkness became complete; then, without previous warning, a dazzling flash of lightning lit up for a moment the wild scene around us, and almost instantaneously a tremendous clap of thunder, an explosion like the bursting of a magazine, caused us to stop paddling, and sit silent and appalled. A fierce blast of wind swept over the river, snapping great trees like twigs on every side; the rain poured down in floods, and soaked us through and through; flash followed flash in quick succession, with its accompanying roar of thunder; whilst at intervals between, a dim, flickering light, faint and blue, like the flame of a spirit lamp, or the “Will-o’-the-wisp,” hovered over the surface of the water, but failed to light up the dense blackness of the night. With this came an ominous hissing, like the blast of a steam pipe, varying with the wind, now sounding near as the flame approached, now more distant as it wandered away. We were in the very focus of the storm; the whole air was charged with electricity, and the changing currents of the electric fluid, or the shifting winds, lifted and played with our hair in passing. The smell of ozone was so pungent that it fairly made us snort again, and forced itself on our notice amongst the other more fearful phenomena of the storm. We made an attempt to land at once, but the darkness was so intense that we could not see to avoid the snags and fallen timber which beset the steep, slippery bank; and the force of the stream bumped us against them in a manner which warned us to desist, if we would avoid being swamped or knocking holes in the paper sides of our frail craft. We had little chance of escape in that case, for the river was deep, and it would be almost impossible to clamber up the slippery face of the bank, even if we succeeded in finding it, through the utter darkness in which we were enveloped. There was nothing else for it but to face it out till daylight, and we therefore fastened the two canoes together, and again gave ourselves up to the fury of the storm. We had some difficulty in bringing the two canoes alongside, but by calling out to one another, and by the momentary glimpses obtained during the flashes of lightning, we at last effected it. Treemiss, crouching in the bows, kept a sharp look-out, while we, seated in the stern, steered by his direction. As each flash illuminated the river before us for an instant, he was able to discern the rocks and snags ahead, and a vigorous stroke of our paddles carried us clear during the interval of darkness.