y; and although I looked to home as a paradise never to be
regained, I could have lain down to sleep in contentment on this spot,
with the consolation that, if the body had been vanquished, we died with
the prize in our grasp.

On arrival at the canoes we found everything in readiness, and the
boatmen already in their places. Once in the broad channel of dead water
we steered due east, and made rapid way until the evening. The river as
it now appeared, although devoid of current, was on an average about 500
yards in width. Before we halted for the night I was subjected to a most
severe attack of fever, and upon the boat reaching a certain spot I
was carried on a litter, perfectly unconscious, to a village, attended
carefully by my poor sick wife, who, herself half dead, followed me on
foot through the marches in pitch darkness, and watched over me until
the morning. At daybreak I was too weak to stand, and we were both
carried down to the canoes, and crawling helplessly within our grass
awning we lay down like logs while the canoes continued their voyage.
Many of our men were also suffering from fever. The malaria of the dense
masses of floating vegetation was most poisonous, and upon looking back
to the canoe that followed in our wake I observed all my men sitting
crouched together sick and dispirited, looking like departed spirits
being ferried across the melancholy Styx.

The woman Bacheeta knew the country, as she had formerly been to Magungo
when in the service of Sali, who had been subsequently murdered by
Kamrasi. She informed me on the second day that we should terminate our
canoe voyage on that day, as we should arrive at the great waterfall of
which she had often spoken. As we proceeded the river gradually narrowed
to about 180 yards, and when the paddles ceased working we could
distinctly hear the roar of water. I had heard this on waking in the
morning, but at the time I had imagined it to proceed from distant
thunder. By ten o'clock the current had so increased as we proceeded
that it was distinctly perceptible, although weak. The roar of the
waterfall was extremely loud, and after sharp pulling for a couple
of hours, during which time the stream increased, we arrived at a few
deserted fishing-huts, at a point where the river made a slight turn.
I never saw such an extraordinary show of crocodiles as were exposed on
every sandbank on the sides of the river. They lay like logs of timber
close together, and