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We had made a bargain for transportation from the railway to Itasca Lake or to a point five miles below, all fully diagrammed and understood by correspondence, but found ourselves set down by the employés of the rascally half-breed who had been careful to leave us at Wild Rice Lake in an unknown land, six days from civilization, at a point nearly or quite thirty miles below the lake, below a region of rapids and obstructions against which we had especially stipulated, and up which no craft had ever travelled.
A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river.
But as I would have moved toward the pebbly beach, a champion rode to my defence. "Your ladyship doesn't think a load of five might disturb the balance of the boat?" mildly suggested the chauffeur. "The usual load is two passengers and two boatmen; and though there's no danger in the rapids if " She did not give him time to finish. "Oh, very well, you must stop with the car, Elise," said she.
Some of the Egyptian soldiers were told off to remain at the worst places of the Cataract to assist in towing the native craft through the rapids. The bugles called the men of Lyttelton's brigade to duty at 3 a.m. on Thursday, the 25th of August.
On Sunday the 19th we hauled the boats up several short rapids, or, as the boatmen term them, expressively enough, spouts, and carried them over the Portages of Lower Burntwood and Morgan's Rocks; on the latter of which we encamped, having proceeded, during the whole day only one mile and three quarters.
What a glorious, exhilarating run we had that day! From here to the end of Marble Canyon the rapids were almost continuous, with few violent drops and seldom broken by the usual quiet pools. It was the finest kind of water for fast travelling, and we made the most of it.
Many years later the Queen appears to have thought that she was beginning to drift on to rocks of serious political mistakes and misfortunes as well as into rapids of frivolity, when the good, wise Pilot came to take the helm of her life-craft.
We might have been all drowned together when the canoe was destroyed, and at any moment in crossing above these rapids we might have been carried off our feet and swept down them." We all acknowledged the truth of his remarks, and together kneeling down on the grass, we lifted up our voices in a prayer of thanksgiving.
We had considered them annoying at Rigolet and Northwest River, but as soon as we began to buck the rapids they came upon us in clouds. They got into our nostrils, into our ears, into our mouths, into our eyes even, and our faces and hands were streaked with blood from their bites. They were villainous, hellish.
The far-off roar of the rapids, softened by distance, and the long, mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the silence of the night. Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer to God, and is filled to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His presence. It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house.
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