He told me, too, of a man who, from bravado, tried to swallow
in his presence, and at a single gulp, one of the big pale-shelled
snails--known in Paris, where they are eaten, after being cooked with
butter and garlic, as _escargots de Bourgogne_--but it stuck in his throat,
and a catastrophe would have happened but for the sturdy blow which his
companion gave him on the 'chine.' That a snail-eater should criticise
gipsies for eating cockchafers shows what creatures of prejudice we all
are.
After passing the Nine Brothers--a name given to nine rocks of rounded
outline standing by the water like towers of a fortress built by
demi-gods--we had our worst fight with the rapids, and were nearly beaten.
It was the last push of the pole from the man behind me, when he had no
more breath in his body, that saved us from being whirled round and carried
back. Before one gets used to it, the sensation of struggling up a river
where it descends a rocky channel at a rather steep gradient is a little
bewildering. The flash of the water dazzles, and its rapid movement makes
one giddy. There is no excitement, however, so exhilarating as that which
comes of a hard battle with one of the forces of nature, especially when
nature does not get the best of it.
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