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28 it. For a long time I contented myself with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I at length effected, and from this my new situation I called out to my companion, who still preserved his hold of the gaff; he shook his head, and when the waves suffered me to look again he was gone. He made no attempt to come near me, being unable or unwilling to let go his hold, and trust himself to the waters, which were then rolling over his head."

The Cascades are a kind of fall, or rapid descent, in the river, over a rocky channel below; going down is called by the French, "sauter," to leap the Cascades. For two miles below the channel continues in an uproar, just like a storm at sea; and he was frequently nearly washed off the barge by the waves which rolled over it. "I now," continued the writer, "entertained no hope whatever of escaping; and although I continued to exert myself to hold on, such was the state to which I was reduced by cold, that I wished only for a speedy death, and frequently thought of giving up the contest as useless. My hands felt as if diminished in size one-half, and I certainly should (after I became very cold and much exhausted) have fallen asleep, but for the waves that were passing over me, which obliged me to attend to my situation. I had never descended the St. Lawrence before; but I knew there were more rapids ahead, perhaps another set of cascades, but at all events La Chine Rapids whose situation I did not exactly know. I was hourly in expectation of these putting an end to me, and often fancied some points of ice extending from the shore to the head of foaming rapids. At one of the moments in which the succession of waves