Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Books and Periodicals
Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)

Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard

Show the Page Image

Show the Image Page Text


More Information About this Image

Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard

Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)

Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 423

12 THE RIVER.
was in ecstacies at such a splendid natural flowershow, and gave us long Latin names for all the
different specimens, The rest of my fellow-passengers
were a big fat man from Buffalo, two young Southerners from South Carolina, three New-Yorkers, and
a Swede. The boat was rather heavily laden, but for
some hours we got along very well, as there was but
little current. Towards the afternoon, however, our
two sailors, who had been pulling all the time, began
to flag, and at last said they could go no further
without a rest. We were still many miles from the
place where we were to pass the night, and as the
banks of the river presented such a formidable
barricade of jungle as to prevent a landing, we had
the prospect of passing the night in the boat, unless
we made the most of our time; so the gardener and I
volunteered to take a spell at the oars. But as we
ascended the river the current became much stronger,
and darkness overtook us some distance from our
intended stopping-place.
It became so very dark that we could not see
six feet ahead of us, and were constantly bumping
against other boats coming up the river. There were
also many boats coming down with the current at
such a rate, that if one had happened to run into us,
we should have had but a poor chance, and we were
obliged to keep shouting all the time to let our
whereabouts be known.
We were several times nearly capsized on snags,
and, as we really could not see whether we were