THE VOYAGEURS. 77 and as the boats pulled up in the slack water below, the poles were picked up and all hands clinched the rope (leaving the poles in the water) and pull hand over hand to the bush above.

“ My boat was unlucky in the first attempt. I caught the rope and told the crew to catch and pull. Hesitation was worse than folly, as the boat was running swiftly up into an eddy. But the men were too slow, and when the boat struck the heavy water only one man and myself had hold. Round she swung, broadside in the rushing torrent. The rope was torn out of our hands as if a runaway locomotive was hitched on to it, and somehow Sergeant Carey (‘ ’Twas in the town of nate Cloghem That Seargeant Snap met Paddy Carey, &c. ’) got tangled in the line and jammed hard against the side of the boat. This (at his expense) broke the first shock we got when we hit the rock below, and as the boat rebounded off the rock, the rope was slacked for a moment, only two or three seconds, just long enough to permit one of the crew to take a hitch round a rowlock, thus swinging us round straight into the stream, saving us from drifting into sure destruction, and enabling all onboard to take a firm hold on the rope, you may bet your life it was a firm grip this time, and we try the upward movement again and with greater success. Heavens, but the strain was a terror, inch by inch we crept up to the top, hung there for a mo¬ ment, touch and go, then slowly forge ahead and out of danger, for a moment and but a moment only, out fly the oars, and pull, my hearties, for your lives ! pull ! pull! is the word. Four oars scraping the bank, and four moving the boat around a sharp turn just about thirty feet from the head of the heavy pitch, where if we failed to connect it was all over with us. Boat and men would have run their last trip, and my place would be known no more, except in the memory of the home ones.

“ This was the worst place on the cataract. We arrived at Abbafatma just at dark. Here we could see, from a small eminence, miles upon miles of river above and below, and far off in the east the sky and desert meeting. The horizon broken here and there by great conical hills, table topped, standing out of the dreary waste of the sandy desert in sullen, solitary gran¬ deur, while aloft a few stars glimmered faintly here and there, now showing a dim light and anon holding themselves from the eye as if afraid even to look upon so barren, so dreary, so heaven-cursed a scene.

“We left Abbafatma on the evening of the 14th and made seven miles against nightfall.

“ 15th. A fine day’s sailing and no accident. “16th. Passed New Dongola with a grand wind blowing. Our orders were against stopping here as the small-pox has been raging here for some time past and we kept the eastern bank of the river.