Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE
do it, but all decline, preferring to have a dangerous
adventure to talk about.
However...
The truth is, the current began to grow ominously
swift-and presently pretty lumpy and perturbed;
soon we seemed to be simply flying past the shores.
Then all of a sudden three hundred yards of boiling
and tossing river burst upon our sight through the
veiling tempest of rain! I did not see how our flimsy
ark could live through such a place. If we were
wrecked, swimming could not save us; the packed
multitude of tall humps of water meant a bristling
chaos of big rocks underneath, and the first rock we
hit would break our bones. If I had been fortified
with ignorance I might have wanted to stay in the
boat and see the fun; but I have had much professional familiarity with water, and I doubted if there
was going to be any fun there. So I said I would
get out and walk, and I did. I need not tell anybody at home; I could leave out the Falls of the
Rh6ne; they are not on the map, anyhow. If an
adventure worth recording resulted, the Admiral and
the courier would have it, and that would answer. I
could see it from the bank-nothing could be better;
it seemed even providential.
I ran along the bank in the driving rain, and enjoyed the sight to the full. I never saw a finer show
than the passage of that boat was, through the fierce
turmoil of water. Alternately she rose high and
plunged deep, throwing up sheets of foaming spray
and shaking them off like a mane. Several times she
seemed to fairly bury herself, and I thought she
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