Incertus, quo fata ferant, ubi sistere detur.

Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the wourali poison has
engaged thy attention, probably thou mayest recollect that the traveller
took leave of thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco. Shouldest thou
wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse the following uninteresting
narrative.

Having had a return of fever, and aware that the farther he advanced into
these wild and lonely regions the less would be the chance of regaining his
health, he gave up all idea of proceeding onwards, and went slowly back
towards the Demerara, nearly by the same route he had come.

On descending the falls in the Essequibo, which form an oblique line quite
across the river, it was resolved to push through them, the downward stream
being in the canoe's favour. At a little distance from the place a large
tree had fallen into the river, and in the meantime the canoe was lashed to
one of its branches.

The roaring of the water was dreadful: it foamed and dashed over the rocks
with a tremendous spray, like breakers on a lee-shore, threatening
destruction to whatever approached it. You would have thought, by the
confusion it caused in the river and the whirlpools it made, that Scylla
and Charybdis, and their whole progeny, had left the Mediterranean and come
and settled here. The channel was barely twelve feet wide, and the torrent
in rushing down formed traverse furrows which showed how near the rocks
were to the surface.

Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian who steered the canoe. He
looked steadfastly at it, then at the rocks, then cast an eye on the