CUT-OFFS JLVZ> STEPHEN.

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cieluged the forecastle, and the boat careened so far o\'er that one
could hardly keep his feet. The next instant we were away down
the liver, clawing with might and main to keep out of the woods.
We tried the experiment four times, I stood on the forecastle
companion way to see. It was astonishing to observe how suddenly
the boat would spin around and turn tail the moment she emerged
from the eddy and the current struck her nose. The sounding

concussion and the quivering would have
been about the same if she had come full
speed against a sand-bank. Under the
lightning flashes one could see the planta-
tion, cabins and the goodly acres tumble into
the river; and the crash they made was not
a bad effort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed
a house about twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window ;
and in the same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could
stay on our forecastle j the water swept across it in a torrent every
time we plunged athwart the current. At the end of our fourth
effort we brought up in the woods two miles below the cut-off; all