All hands worked hard; inch by inch the water rose; Mr Harvey, assisted by the boys and teamsters, fastened ropes together, and with these surrounded the closely-packed throng of cattle. The water was now more than waist-deep, and was still rising; soon the cattle on the outside were lifted off their feet. There was no current here, and they floated with their heads on the backs of those in front of them; higher and higher the water rose, till the whole of the cattle were afloat. At first a few struggled, but soon they subsided into quiet, and the whole mass floated together, with only their heads above water. On every available ledge on the hillside were placed bundles and bales of all kinds, and here the whites and natives stood, watching the progress of the flood. The thunder-shower had ceased soon after the water first burst through the gorge, but Mr Harvey knew that some hours must elapse before the flood would begin to abate. "I don't see why the water should not run off as fast as it comes in," Dick said. "It all depends, Dick, upon the question whether in the lower defile there is any place narrower than the mouth, through which the water is rushing from above. According to appearances this is so; for, could the water escape faster than it comes in, the lake here would cease to rise. I think now the water has reached a level, where the outflow nearly equals the inflow. I have been watching the wheels of the waggons, and for the last ten minutes I do not think it has risen above an inch or two." "I will get down and watch," Dick said, and he scrambled down to the water's edge. Two minutes later he shouted up,-- "It has not risen at all since I came here!" The teamsters had taken their station on the outside waggons, and continued to talk and shout to the oxen, exhorting these to be patient and quiet, as if the animals were capable of understanding every word they said. For three hours there was no change in the situation. Then all thought that there was a slight decrease in the height of the torrent of water pouring from the defile, and half an hour later a slight but distinct subsidence in the level of the water could be perceived. In another hour it had fallen a foot, and after that the fall was rapid and steady. The deep roar caused by the rushing torrent and the rumbling of the huge boulders and rocks swept along in the narrow defile, gradually subsided, and soon the bullocks were again standing on their feet. The natives set to work to wash away the thick sediment which the flood had left on the floor of the waggons, and before nightfall the goods were all repacked. But few signs of the recent flood now remained in the valley. A stream still rushed through the centre. Trunks and branches of trees lay here and there, as the water had left them, and the bodies of some twenty or thirty natives were lying amongst the rocks. In some places shallow pools remained; in others were sheets of glistening mud.