must see the Watuta at home in
their sports, and we must, by-and-bye, go to the great forest several
days south of where thou wert found, Selim, to have a grand elephant
hunt. What do ye say, Selim--Abdullah?"

"I shall be delighted," answered Selim.

"And I too," responded Abdullah.

"Then it is settled; eh, Simba and Moto?"

"Yes," those faithfuls replied.

At dawn, the time prescribed, the party set out for the river, two
warriors accompanying them, bearing the paddles for the canoe. Simba
and Moto carried their guns, Kalulu carried the one given him by Selim
at the brotherhood ceremony, besides his spear, while Selim and Abdullah
carried guns which Kalulu had procured them from the King's store-room,
with the King's permission.

Arriving at the river, the party found a large number of idlers there
already, who had collected to see their young chief and his white
slaves, as Selim and Abdullah were called, set off. Some of them
wondered that Kalulu should so soon take his slaves away on a pleasure
excursion, but they said nothing, the majority of them thinking that he
took them with him as gun-bearers. Several of the Watuta offered to
accompany Kalulu in his canoe, but he waived them off peremptorily,
saying he had enough with him.

Soon after Kalulu had taken his seat in the stern with Selim and
Abdullah, Simba, Moto, and the two warriors, taking each a paddle, shot
the canoe into mid-river; then with dexterous strokes they pointed her
head down stream, to the music of a boatman's song. Each man
industriously plied his paddle, and Katalambula's village receded from
view.

This mode of journeying the two Arab boys, having nothing to do but to
sit down and enjoy the scenery, thought much preferable to the continual
march of the caravan; and the contrast was certainly great to that
bitter experience they had endured on the journey from Kwikuru in Urori
to Katalambula with the heavy-handed and callous-souled Tifum. They
looked on with delight at the brown river and the tiny billows of brown
foam which the stout canoe made with her broad bow; at the dense sedge
and brake of cane which lined the river's banks, wherein, now and then,
was heard a heavy splash, as the drowsy crocodile, alarmed by the
approaching crew, leaped into his liquid home; at the great tall trees
which now and then were passed, out of which the canoes of the Watuta
are made; at the enormous sycamore, with its vast globe of branch and