He succeeded,
however, in returning unmolested to the shore, and determined to
penetrate no farther into a country so beset with savage perils.
He sat himself down, dripping, disconsolately, on a wet stone. What
was to be done? Where was he to shelter himself? The hour of repose
was approaching; the birds were seeking their nests, the bat began to
flit about in the twilight, and the night-hawk soaring high in heaven,
seemed to be calling out the stars. Night gradually closed in, and
wrapped every thing in gloom; and though it was the latter part of
summer, yet the breeze, stealing along the river, and among these
dripping forests, was chilly and penetrating, especially to a
half-drowned man.
As he sat drooping and despondent in this comfortless condition, he
perceived a light gleaming through the trees near the shore, where the
winding of the river made a deep bay. It cheered him with the hopes
that here might be some human habitation, where he might get something
to appease the clamorous cravings of his stomach, and, what was
equally necessary in his shipwrecked condition, a comfortable shelter
for the night. It was with extreme difficulty that he made his way
towards the light, along ledges of rocks down which he was in danger
of sliding into the river, and over great trunks of fallen trees; some
of which had been blown down in the late storm, and lay so thickly
together, that he had to struggle through their branches.
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