meat, they continued their course.
Low, sandy islands rose in mid-stream, covered with reeds, on which lay,
basking in the morning sun, several crocodiles, who rushed to their
liquid homes at hearing the sound of the paddles, and on seeing the
intruding canoe. On our friends rowed, past mangroves and groups of
_Eschinomense_, which flung their random roots out in all directions;
past sandy isles and patches of sandbars; through narrow channels, along
which they raced, whither they knew not, whither they cared not, so they
took them to the inland sea they were in search of.

At noon our party halted in the depths of a mangrove swamp, and went to
sleep in the bottom of the canoe. In the dark night they woke
thoroughly refreshed, and tasked their powers of digestion with some
more beef, and then paddled out to the stream once more. Another night
was passed under the beamy stars and dark-blue sky, while mild breezes
bathed their hot brows, and tall cane gently nodded their heads as a
token of farewell, and the leaves sighed their regrets at the evanishing
canoe. The water broke in wavelets against her side, and formed a foamy
wake behind. The bull-crocodile sonorously roared, and the bull hippo,
at his banquet of tiger grass, uttered his deep base bellow, which
strange noises the startled night caught up and pealed across the swampy
fens and morasses, rousing the indignant and protesting frogs. Still
silent sat the rowers, uttering no words, speechless as shadows; while
the canoe cleft the murky-faced river, glided swiftly under the nodding
reeds and sombrous mangrove, and halted not for frog or crocodile.

And morning came; and as the rising sun began to drive the mist of night
away--lo! the lake at last! Liemba's lake! And the hitherto speechless
rowers burst into a triumphant shout and an enraptured "Ah!" as they
thought the goal was won.

Let each reader fancy to himself the expanding view of the silver grey
waters of the lake; its miniature waves lifting their snowy crests as
they felt the force of the gentle gale; the sun reflected a thousand
times as, rising above the eastern horizon, it slanted over the heads of
the joyous rowers and mirrored itself in the tiny waves and troughs. On
the left, the lake-shore studded with many a hummock cone and blue hill,
and between each the shadowy forest glades; and along the margin of the
shore a strip of white sand, laved by whiter foam. And now the canoe is
quite ou