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Updated: June 14, 2025
A raging thirst had seized me. I tried to drink the river-water: but it was boiling hot sulphurous reeking of putrefaction. Suddenly I fancied that I could pass round the foot of the mountain; and jumbling, as madmen will, the sublime and the ridiculous, I sprang up to go round the foot of my bed, which was the mountain. I recollect lying on the floor.
This obstruction of course acts in both directions, according to circumstances. In one case, it prevents the escape of river-water and tends to maintain a full flow of the current; in another it intercepts the supply the river might otherwise receive by infiltration from the land, and thus tends to reduce the volume of the stream.
"No, Mr Joe Cripps, I couldn't," said Bob, sharply; "but I tell you what you all may do; put your heads over the side, and drink as much of this clear river-water as you like. We're not at sea, man." "More we aren't, sir," said the man, glancing round at his companions, who laughed. "Look here," said Bob, "Dick will keep an eye on the shore, and I'll tell the sentry there to pass the word.
"All kinds of accidents are continually happening to people who go salmon-fishing, and no one takes any notice of them. My maid is quite used to getting my things dried whether they're soaked through with rain or with river-water doesn't much matter to her. And old Robert can take your clothes to the fire in the gun-room long before the gentlemen come back from the hill.
But even this short respite from the glare of the sun was soon to end; for before the crack of dawn, or, as it seemed to us, shortly after midnight, came such a clatter with the fires and the high-pressure engine and the sparks, and what all they did in that wild and reckless land, that further rest was impossible, and we betook ourselves with our mattresses to the staterooms, for another attempt at sleep, which, however, meant only failure, as the sun rose incredibly early on that river, and we were glad to take a hasty sponge from a basin of rather thick looking river-water, and go again out on deck, where we could always get a cup of black coffee from the Chinaman.
Providentially, my prophetic soul induces me to leave the top of the ladder and go forward "run to win'ard," as Captain Murray would say for within two minutes the Captain and Engineer are up the ladder as if they had been blown up by the boilers bursting, and go as one man for the brandy bottle; and they wanted it if ever man did; for remember that hippo had been dead and in the warm river-water for more than a week.
This is explained partly by the different character of the substances held in solution or suspension by the waters of the earth and of the sky, partly by the higher temperature of the latter, and, possibly, partly also by the mode of application the rain being finely divided in its fall or by striking plants on the ground, river-water flowing in a continuous sheet.
Generally, there is so little of any substance in the water that we cannot taste it, and we call it pure water; but the purest of spring or river-water has always some solid matter dissolved in it, and all this goes to the sea.
That morning the wind dipped down off the Vermillion Cliffs and whipped west; there was no scent of river-water, and Hare thought of the fatality of the sheep-drive, when, for one day out of the year, a moistened dank breeze had met the flock on the narrow bench.
In the intensity of his anxiety, he forgot that he was hungry and many miles away from cheerful, Old World little Hall, lying by the clear gray river-water, with the ramparts of the mountains all around. Presently the door opened again sharply. He could hear the two dealers' voices murmuring unctuous words, in which, "honor," "gratitude," and many fine long noble titles played the chief parts.
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