Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/174

124, necessarily creates great havoc amongst the glacial and fluviatile deposits through which it descends, and, as a matter of course, all the smaller stones are hurried and rolled along to form shingle on the river-beds further down, leaving the larger ones, which alone can stand against the force of the flood. The natural consequence is a stream of the most broken and impetuous character, a stream whose rushing, roaring, and foaming drowns all sounds contiguous to it; rapid after rapid of seemingly tempest-tossed and crested billows, of whirlpools and eddies, of backwaters and heavings into surface currents, and never a still pool to be found anywhere.

Imagine, then, the troubles of two canoeists in navigating this stretch of water. No canoe or boat in the world would have the slightest chance of going through, out in the current, without being smashed into matchwood and its occupants infallibly drowned, for swimming would avail a man nothing in such a place.

All we could do, then, was to keep close to the bank and let our frail boats down by the tow-lines amongst the rocks in the comparatively shallow water. Now shoving them off into a fair stretch and hauling them up short in time to avoid contact with some ugly rock in front, then scrambling along ourselves and coiling our lines as we advanced, clambering over water-worn and slippery rocks, tearing our way through the Wild Irishman scrub, or wading a few steps middle-deep in the turbid water to the points where we had brought our respective canoes up. Then repeating the same performance over again and again, bruising our legs against rocks, slipping down amid the slimy stones,