The scenery became romantic and beautiful, but always wild.

The river, deep at any time, was now swollen fifteen feet more by floods on its upper courses, and the water always lapped at the base of the forest.
Dick and Pennington, standing side by side, saw the second sun set over their voyage, and it was as wild and lonely as the first.

There was a yellow river again, and hills covered with a bare forest.

Heavy gray clouds trooped across the sky, and the sun was lost among them before it sank behind the hills in the west.
Dick and Pennington, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats, slept upon the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them.

They were awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots.