My first strokes answered the purpose of sending the boat off from shore,
and for a few minutes I got on pretty well; but presently I got tired of
shifting the paddle from side to side, a manoeuvre which I accomplished
very clumsily and slowly, and yet, with all my precautions, not without
making the boat tip perilously. The immense breadth and volume of the
river suddenly seized my eyes and imagination as it were, and I began to
fancy that if I got into the middle of the stream I should not be able to
paddle myself back against it--which, indeed, might very well have proved
the case. Then I became nervous, and paddled all on one side, by which
means, of course, I only turned the boat round. S---- began to fidget
about, getting up from where I had placed her, and terrifying me with her
unsteady motions and the rocking of the canoe. I was now very much
frightened, and saw that I _must_ get back to shore before I became more
helpless than I was beginning to feel; so laying S---- down in the bottom
of the boat as a preliminary precaution, I said to her with infinite
emphasis, 'Now lie still there, and don't stir, or you'll be drowned,' to
which, with her clear grey eyes fixed on me, and no sign whatever of
emotion, she replied deliberately, 'I shall lie still here, and won't
stir, for I should not like to be drowned,' which, for an atom not four
years old, was rather philosophical. Then I looked about me, and of course
having drifted, set steadily to work and paddled home, with my heart in my
mouth almost till we grazed the steps, and I got my precious freight safe
on shore again, since which I have taken no more paddling lessons without
my slave and master, Jack.

We have had a death among the people since I last wrote to you. A very
valuable slave called Shadrach was seized with a disease which is
frequent, and very apt to be fatal here--peri-pneumonia; and in spite of
all that could be done to save him, sank rapidly, and died after an acute
illness of only three days. The doctor came repeatedly from Darien, and