Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/280

Rh. So long as you go with the logs they are gentle as friendly savages, just rubbing you softly like living things, and movable with a finger. But get fast, and let them come down on you, and the ribs of a boat will smash like a matchbox under their brutal drive and the jagged fibres of their tapered butt-ends. The logs on our left were stationary; but the rapid water boiled up between them. We ran swiftly along two great logs—then suddenly stopped. An immense log had been forced up and across its fellows, and as its farther end was driven swiftly forward, its heavy butt came straight for the canoe. Dr. Guiteras got the first blow, on the head and shoulder, which rather keeled us. Then the log took me fairly on the chest, and over and down we went. For some seconds, Guiteras's feet having got fast somehow in the boat forward, he was in a bad way; but he soon kicked free, and we swam at our ease with the boat down the river.

To men who can swim well enough not to lose their presence of mind by a sudden upset, there is little danger in canoeing—probably no more than in riding. It is well, though, to know what to do when you find yourself rolling into the water. When you come up, the canoe is, of course, bottom-side up. By catching hold of her