Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/481

 It occupies from one to two weeks in getting through the rapids. Some are so difficult of ascent as to require many hours for its accomplishment, while others can be gotten over in less than half an hour. By means of ropes and pulleys the men, with the "Heave-O" cry that is heard the world over, pull and push the boat upward through the gushing waters to the top of the fall, where we glide on in smoother ease—several miles, it may be—until a warning roar in the distance announces the approach to another rapid.

The river is very winding in its course and variable in breadth—narrow here, where perpendicular walls of granite rise sheer out of the water to prodigious heights, shutting us in with heavy shadows and deep solitude; wider there, where the rocks recede and stand apart, leaving valleys between, where many a boulder, large and small, in "rank confusion" lies, and where at the river's edge are spaces of white sandy beach. Here, where we halt for the night, a spacious ampitheatre encloses us apart from all of earth. Encompassed by the "everlasting hills" and under the silent stars, we sing our evening song of praise and worship "Him who is from everlasting to everlasting."

When the morning sunlight sends us on our way again, fresh revelations of beauty meet our wondering eyes—cliffs whose precipitous sides