I Asked If It Could
Be Passed, Or Whether It Would Be Better To Wheel Round The Head Of It.
Our Guides Answered That It Was Bad To Cross, But Might Be Got Over,
Which Would Save Us More Than A Quarter Of A Mile.
Knowing the value of time,
I directly bade them to push through, and every one began to follow as well
as he could.
They who were foremost had not, however, got above half over
when the difficulty of progress was sensibly experienced. We were immersed,
nearly to the waist in mud, so thick and tenacious, that it was not without
the most vigorous exertion of every muscle of the body, that the legs
could be disengaged. When we had reached the middle, our distress became
not only more pressing, but serious, and each succeeding step,
buried us deeper. At length a sergeant of grenadiers stuck fast, and declared
himself incapable of moving either forward or backward; and just after,
Ensign Prentice and I felt ourselves in a similar predicament, close together.
'I find it impossible to move; I am sinking;' resounded on every side.
What to do I knew not: every moment brought increase of perplexity,
and augmented danger, as those who could not proceed kept gradually subsiding.
From our misfortunes, however, those in the rear profited. Warned by what
they saw and heard, they inclined to the right towards the head of the creek,
and thereby contrived to pass over.
Our distress would have terminated fatally, had not a soldier cried out
to those on shore to cut boughs of trees*, and throw them to us - a lucky
thought, which certainly saved many of us from perishing miserably; and even
with this assistance, had we been burdened by our knapsacks, we could not have
emerged; for it employed us near half an hour to disentangle some of
our number.
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