We had scarcely ventured near the top of the rapids when, by a careless slackening of the stern cable, the current swept the boat from the hands of that portion of her crew whose duty it was to lower her carefully and cautiously down the fall, to the narrow line of ebb flood below the rocky projection. Away into the centre of the angry, foaming, billowy stream the boat darted, dragging one man into the maddened flood, to whom, despite our awful position, I was able to lend a hand and lift into the boat. “Oars, my boys, and be steady! Uledi, to the helm!” were all the instructions I was able to shout, after which, standing at the bow of the boat, I guided the coxswain with my hand; for now, as we rode downwards furiously on the crests of the proud waves, the human voice was weak against the overwhelming thunder of the angry river. Oars were only useful to assist the helm, for we were flying at a terrific speed past the series of boulders which strangled the river. Never did the rocks assume such hardness, such solemn grimness and bigness, never were they invested with such terrors and such grandeur of height, as while we were the cruel sport and prey of the brown-black waves, which whirled us round like a spinning top, swung us aside, almost engulfed us in the rapidly subsiding troughs, and then hurled us upon the white, rageful crests of others. Ah! with what feelings we regarded this awful power which the great river had now developed! How we cringed under its imperious, compelling, and irresistible force! What lightning retrospects we cast upon our past lives! How impotent we felt before it! “La il Allah, il Allah!” screamed young Mabruki. “We are lost!—yes, we are lost!”