Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/43

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Each man caught hold of something: one of the crew seized me, and kept me down under the water, but, contrary to my expectation, let me go again. On rising to the surface, I got hold of a trunk, on which two other men were then holding. Just at this spot, where the Split Rock Rapids terminated, the bank of the river is well inhabited, and we could see women on shore running about much agitated. A canoe put off, and picked up three of our number, who had gained the bottom of the barge, which had upset and got rid of its cargo; these they landed on an island. The canoe put off again, and was approaching near to where I was, with two others, holding on the trunk; when, terrified with the vicinity of the cascades, to which we were approaching, it put back, notwithstanding my exhortations in French and English to induce the two men on board to advance. The bad hold which one man had of the trunk to which we were adhering subjected him to constant immersion, and in order to escape his seizing hold of me, I let go the trunk, and, in conjunction with another man, got hold of the boom, which, with the gaff and sails, had been detached from the mast to make room for the cargo, and floated off. I had just time to grasp this boom, when we were hurried into the cascades; in these I was instantly buried, and nearly suffocated. On rising to the surface, I found one of my hands still on the boom, and my companion also adhering closely to the gaff. Shortly after descending the cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards, floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in one end of it; the violence of the water, and the falling out of the casks of ashes, had quite wrecked