All these, and more, Rachel saw as she became more attuned to the river, and she did not feel alone. It was humbling, this much was true. It reminded her that they were far from any human settlement, and it almost felt like a foreign land, though they were still in territory claimed by the British as their own. But to feel alone, as those men had done? To discount all the other life around her, to discount even the gently flowing water and the fertile earth itself as companions in her journey? That struck her as the height of arrogance.
