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The young crocodiles are often attacked, and have their eyes pecked out, by the small gallinazo or "zamuro" vultures just in the same way that we have seen one of a larger size become the victim of the more powerful king vultures. After many days of rafting our travellers arrived in a most singular country.
It happened that more materials were required from the wreck; and the obtaining of these, and the rafting of them down to the ship-yard, had hitherto been a work involving the expenditure of much time and great labour, as, until the arrival of the two blacks in their canoe about six months before, my father had nothing in the shape of a boat, excepting a rude catamaran sort of an affair; and after the acquisition of the canoe, though she was, of course, most useful for many purposes, the rafting down of the timbers and planking was almost as tedious and laborious an operation as ever, the canoe being too small and too light for towing purposes, and their usual mode of procedure had been to kedge down everything.
Owing to the dryness of the climate and intense heat of the summer the bullock-carts were perpetually falling to pieces. The mules, donkeys, and ponies gave the best results, but do not abound in sufficient quantities to enable an army in Afghanistan to dispense with camels. A successful experiment in rafting, from Jelalabad to Dakka, was tried.
"The ice is rafting up to a height of 10 or 15 ft. in places, the opposing floes are moving against one another at the rate of about 200 yds. per hour. The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below."
In rafting our precious accumulations of timber down the Columbia River to Oak Point, we were carried by the current past the place where we had expected to sell our logs at six dollars a thousand feet. Following the raft to the larger waters, we finally reached Astoria, where we sold the logs for eight dollars a thousand instead of six, thus profiting by our misfortunes.
Our first business was to water the ship by rafting and towing off the casks. I was in charge of the boat again, with Swinburne as coxswain. As we pulled in, there were a number of negroes bathing in the surf, bobbing their woolly heads under it, as it rolled into the beach. "Now, Mr Simple," said Swinburne, "see how I'll make them niggers scamper."
Yes, he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he choked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it, which was prob'ly a lie, and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, before his wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and went to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chased him.
Then they sat down, and the old man related all that had happened to the Whatnot and her passengers since leaving Dubuque. When the recital was ended, the Major drew a long breath, and exclaimed, "Well, for mysterious happenings, incidents, and rapid changes of scene, that beats anything in the line of Mississippi rafting that ever I heard of.
The products of the country such as logs, spars, and boards are prepared during these months for rafting down the rivers during the spring floods.
The "rafting season" was looked forward to with no little solicitude by the more robust and daring of the young men. They waited for the rafts to be cut from their moorings with keen anticipation, and the stories of some of the rivermen are still well remembered by the older inhabitants. For a great many years, Albany was the only market to which the pioneers carted their wheat.
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