I Got Into The Bow Of The Canoe, And
Shoved Off From The Bank All Right; Then I Knelt Down - Learn How To
Paddle Standing Up By And By - Good So Far.
I rapidly learnt how to
steer from the bow, but I could not get up any pace.
Intent on
acquiring pace, I got to the edge of the slack water; and then
displaying more wisdom, I turned round to avoid it, proud as a
peacock, you understand, at having found out how to turn round. At
this moment, the current of "the greatest equatorial river in the
world," grabbed my canoe by its tail. We spun round and round for a
few seconds, like a teetotum, I steering the whole time for all I
was worth, and then the current dragged the canoe ignominiously down
river, tail foremost.
Fortunately a big tree was at that time temporarily hanging against
the rock in the river, just below the sawmill beach. Into that tree
the canoe shot with a crash, and I hung on, and shipping my paddle,
pulled the canoe into the slack water again, by the aid of the
branches of the tree, which I was in mortal terror would come off
the rock, and insist on accompanying me and the canoe, via Kama
country, to the Atlantic Ocean; but it held, and when I had got safe
against the side of the pinnacle-rock I wiped a perspiring brow, and
searched in my mind for a piece of information regarding Navigation
that would be applicable to the management of long-tailed Adooma
canoes.
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