"A few vigorous strokes will send us there," answered Ventura; "but the most embarrassing thing is to discover the entrance to the narrow reach that runs up from this basin. This reach is as narrow as the one we have just left."
"Put out the boat-hook to feel if we are not running against the rocks."
I did what he ordered me. The boat was still in the middle of the stream. The boat-hook, though stretched out as far as I could reach, struck against nothing.
"All right," I cried. "I can touch the rocks on neither side."
The rowers again plied their oars, and the light skiff flew up the river. All at once the boat-hook, which I was holding at right angles to the boat, hit against a rock, and bounced out of my hands. The shock over set me completely. A cracking of broken branches was heard. The skiff suddenly stopped.
"What's this?" cried the pilot, who had run to the bow, and was fumbling with his hands among a tangled mass of lianas and branches. "Demonic! the rascals have pitched a dead tree into the river higher up, and the current has carried it down here. We can advance no farther. How shall we get out of this mess? One or two large stones, hurled from the top of these rocks, might crush us to pieces before we could clear the passage."
This took us completely aback, and not another word was said. The only plan seemed to be to return to the reach we had just left; but the boat was so strongly fixed among the branches of the fallen tree that it could not be disengaged. Some moments passed in a fruitless endeavor to overcome this obsta-
