- Look, Look!" - When A
Loud Crash Burst On Our Ears.
Dr. Kirk's canoe was dashed on a
projection of the perpendicular rocks, by a sudden and mysterious
boiling up of the river, which occurs at irregular intervals.
Dr.
Kirk was seen resisting the sucking-down action of the water, which
must have been fifteen fathoms deep, and raising himself by his arms
on to the ledge, while his steersman, holding on to the same rocks,
saved the canoe; but nearly all its contents were swept away down the
stream. Dr. Livingstone's canoe, meanwhile, which had distracted the
men's attention, was saved by the cavity in the whirlpool filling up
as the frightful eddy was reached. A few of the things in Dr. Kirk's
canoe were left; but all that was valuable, including a chronometer,
a barometer, and, to our great sorrow, his notes of the journey and
botanical drawings of the fruit-trees of the interior, perished.
We now left the river, and proceeded on foot, sorry that we had not
done so the day before. The men were thoroughly frightened, they had
never seen such perilous navigation. They would carry all the loads,
rather than risk Kebrabasa any longer; but the fatigue of a day's
march over the hot rocks and burning sand changed their tune before
night; and then they regretted having left the canoes; they thought
they should have dragged them past the dangerous places, and then
launched them again. One of the two donkeys died from exhaustion
near the Luia.
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