to renew their libations to Bacchus, and to laugh over the comical termination of the bet.
Crow's nest island is a beautiful little spot, and is about a mile from the right bank, and half a mile from the left, and only a mile below the commencement of a noble reach of the river, which is perfectly straight for nine miles (therefore called the Nine mile reach) in a S. S. W. direction, and upwards of a mile wide.
Eighteen miles from the lower end of the Nine mile reach, we came to three new settlements on the left, within a mile of each other. The banks here {277} are not more than three feet above the present level of the river. Eleven miles farther, in an intricate pass between two islands captain Wells's inside boat was driven by the current against a quantity of drift wood, the shock of which parted her from his other boat and mine. She stuck fast, and we continued down the sound between the islands about two miles, when seeing a convenient place for stopping, we rowed in, and made fast in a fine eddy, among willows at the lower point of the right hand island, where we were soon after joined by Wells with his boat which he had got off again without damage.
Whiskey having been dealt liberally to the boatmen to induce them to exert themselves while the boat was in danger, it began to operate by the time they rejoined us, the consequence of which was a battle royal, in which some of the combatants attempted to gouge each other, but my boat's company interfering, separated them, and quelled the disturbance, after which I delivered them a long lecture on that shameful, unmanly, and inhuman practice, condemning it in such strong terms, as to almost provoke an attack against myself, but I at last succeeded, or thought I succeeded, in making them ashamed of themselves.
The two islands between which we had just floated, are
