left the profits and pleasures of marketing to attack
us in impetuous style, so little did they expect that the
descending canoes contained men whose souls had been
well tried in resisting such attacks. All ot us who had
been present on that occasion rehearsed the scene and
the events which almost each tree recalled.
An hour’ later a fourth market-place' was passed,
from which the natives had been seen hastening away
to an island or islands near the left bank. The distance
was so great, and so much haziness from the
humid heat obscured the light, that we could not well
discern the outline of the opposite shore.
The land rose in beautiful gentle hills, green with
the perpetual springtime, and deeply wooded everywhere,
but bluffy on their river face. Here and
there peeped out banana groves, belonging to tiny
hamlets occupying the limited clearings. These higher
lands belong no doubt to the bluff-browed hanks near
Yamhumba on the Biyerre.
Looking across to the islands which the Congo again
hears within its bosom we fancy we see a movement as
of paddles—those bright mirror-like flashes of water we
know so well on a calm day, and languidly tracing the
islet shores upward, a half-formed suspicion creeps into
our minds that the shores themselves are widening.
But, examining the curious phenomenon through a
binocular, such a number of canoes are seen that they
create unpleasant thoughts of imminent strife. Suggestions
arise of conflicts with the o terrible Bahunga,
of running down an entire flotilla of canoes, plunging
and sprawling madly about with marvellous rapidity
of action, while the sharp crank of breech-loaders sound Biyerri.
clear above the turmoil. What else could such an
encounter mean ? Our men are all conscious that
there is a large force | of people in the neighbourhood,
notwithstanding that the right bank appears
silent and uninhabited.
We .cast off the whale-boat, and the En Avant
dashes on to obtain a clearer view ot this immense
flotilla. In ten minutes we can trace a long and
thick column of ascending canoes, creeping along under
the shadows of the overhanging woods of an island.
It may be three miles in length; it may be less, it may
be more, but its length dwarfs all that we have ever
seen of flotillas. I estimated the number of canoes at
about a thousand. We steamed slowly up, parallel
with the column, to the distance of a mile and a half.
I presumed that they meditated an attack, and I
became lost in conjectures as to the result of a
determined charge of such a vast force. If there were
an average of five to each canoe that would give a
number of 5000 ; enough to overwhelm us, even if they
came to the attack with naked hands.
Discretion is wise in such circumstances as environed
us. We had no quarrel with any people, not even
with the Bahunga, and our mission could not he
prefaced by seeking opportunities for warfare. ArguinOg
thus the En Avant returned to her consorts,
picked up her boat, and the steam flotilla held on
its way.