My only chance was to make a small
raft; and that would be difficult to make, and not at all safe when it
was made,--not for one man in such a current.
As it was too late to do much that afternoon, I spent the rest of it in
going up and down the river side, and seeing where I should find the most
favourable crossing. Then I camped early, and had a quiet comfortable
night with no more music, for which I was thankful, as it had haunted me
all day, although I perfectly well knew that it had been nothing but my
own fancy, brought on by the reminiscence of what I had heard from
Chowbok and by the over-excitement of the preceding evening.
Next day I began gathering the dry bloom stalks of a kind of flag or iris-
looking plant, which was abundant, and whose leaves, when torn into
strips, were as strong as the strongest string. I brought them to the
waterside, and fell to making myself a kind of rough platform, which
should suffice for myself and my swag if I could only stick to it. The
stalks were ten or twelve feet long, and very strong, but light and
hollow. I made my raft entirely of them, binding bundles of them at
right angles to each other, neatly and strongly, with strips from the
leaves of the same plant, and tying other rods across.
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