The rocks round being just awash, we survived
and got her straight again, and got into her and drove her
unmercifully; she struck again and bucked like a broncho, and we
fell in heaps upon each other, but stayed inside that time - the men
by the aid of their intelligent feet, I by clinching my hands into
the bush rope lacing which ran round the rim of the canoe and the
meaning of which I did not understand when I left Talagouga. We
sorted ourselves out hastily and sent her at it again. Smash went a
sorely tried pole and a paddle. Round and round we spun in an
exultant whirlpool, which, in a light-hearted, maliciously joking
way, hurled us tail first out of it into the current. Now the grand
point in these canoes of having both ends alike declared itself; for
at this juncture all we had to do was to revolve on our own axis and
commence life anew with what had been the bow for the stern. Of
course we were defeated, we could not go up any further without the
aid of our lost poles and paddles, so we had to go down for shelter
somewhere, anywhere, and down at a terrific pace in the white water
we went. While hitched among the rocks the arrangement of our crew
had been altered, Pierre joining M'bo in the bows; this piece of
precaution was frustrated by our getting turned round; so our
position was what you might call precarious, until we got into
another whirlpool, when we persuaded Nature to start us right end
on. This was only a matter of minutes, whirlpools being plentiful,
and then M'bo and Pierre, provided with our surviving poles, stood
in the bows to fend us off rocks, as we shot towards them; while we
midship paddles sat, helping to steer, and when occasion arose,
which occasion did with lightning rapidity, to whack the whirlpools
with the flat of our paddles, to break their force. Cook crouched
in the stern concentrating his mind on steering only. A most
excellent arrangement in theory and the safest practical one no
doubt, but it did not work out what you might call brilliantly well;
though each department did its best. We dashed full tilt towards
high rocks, things twenty to fifty feet above water. Midship backed
and flapped like fury; M'bo and Pierre received the shock on their
poles; sometimes we glanced successfully aside and flew on;
sometimes we didn't. The shock being too much for M'bo and Pierre
they were driven back on me, who got flattened on to the cargo of
bundles which, being now firmly tied in, couldn't spread the
confusion further aft; but the shock of the canoe's nose against the
rock did so in style, and the rest of the crew fell forward on to
the bundles, me, and themselves. So shaken up together were we
several times that night, that it's a wonder to me, considering the
hurry, that we sorted ourselves out correctly with our own
particular legs and arms.
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