before
the natives manned their canoes and pursued them. In this region they
were armed with muskets procured from the coast. Once Stanley's small
flotilla was surrounded by sixty-three canoes, and there was a hard
fight with firearms on both sides. In the foremost canoe stood a young
chief, handsome, calm, and dignified, directing the attack. He wore a
head-covering and a mantle of goatskin, and on his arms, legs, and neck
he had large rings of brass wire. A bullet struck him in the thigh. He
quietly wound a rag round the wound and signed to his oarsmen to make
for the bank. Then the others lost courage and followed their leader's
canoe.

They struggled southwards from one combat to another. The passage of the
great curve of the Congo had cost thirty-two fights. Now remained a
difficult stretch, where the mighty river breaks in foaming falls and
rapids through the escarpment which follows the line of the west coast
of Africa. These falls Stanley named after Livingstone; he was well
aware that the river could never be called by any other name than the
Congo, but the falls would preserve the great missionary's name.
Innumerable difficulties awaited him here. On one occasion half a dozen
men were drowned and several canoes were lost, and the party had to wait
while others were cut out in the forest. One day Pocock drifted towards
a fall, and was not aware of the danger until it was too late and he was
swept over the barrier. Thus perished the last of Stanley's white
companions.

At another fall the coxswain and the carpenter went adrift in a newly
excavated canoe. They had no oars. "Jump, man," called out the former,
but the other answered, "I cannot swim." "Well, then, good-bye, my
brother," said the quartermaster, and swam ashore. The other went over
the fall. The canoe disappeared in the seething whirlpool, came up again
with the man clinging fast to it, was sucked under once more, and rose
again still with the carpenter. But when it reappeared for the third
time in another whirlpool the man was gone.

At last all the boats were abandoned and the men travelled by land. The
party was entirely destitute, all were emaciated, miserable, and hungry.
A black chief demanded toll for their passage through his country, and
they had nothing to give. He would be satisfied with a bottle of rum he
said. Rum, indeed, when they had been three years in the depths of
Africa! Stanley was reasoning with the chief when the coxswain cam