of mind, and soon upset his canoe in a piece of bad water
Muscati and his friend Uledi swam down the furious stream
to Ntunduru Island, whence they were saved by the eighth
canoe, manned by stout-hearted Manwa Sera and Uledi the
coxswain of the Lady Alice; but poor Zaidi, the chief, pa.
ralysed by the roar of the stream, unfortunately thought his 5
safety was assured by clinging to his canoe, which was soon
swept past our new camp, in full view of those who had
been deputed with Frank to form it, to what seemed inevitable
death. But a kindly Providence, which he has himself grate-'
fully acknowledged, saved him even on the brink of eternity.
The great fall at the north end of Ntunduru Island happens
to be disparted by a single pointed rock, and on this the
canoe was driven, and, borne down by the weight of the
waters, was soon split in two, one side of which got jammed
below, and the other was tilted upward. To this the almost
drowned man clung, while perched on the rocky point, with
his ankles washed by the stream. To his left, as he faced:
up-stream, there was a stretch of 50 yards of falling water;
to his right were nearly fifty yards of leaping brown waves,
while, close behind him, the water fell down sheer six to
eight feet, through a gap 10 yards wide, between the rocky
point on which he was perched and a rocky islet 30 yards
long.
“ When called to the scene by his weeping friends, from
my labours up-river, I could scarcely believe my eyes, or
realise the strange chance which placed him there, and, certainly,
a more critical position than the poor fellow was in
cannot be imagined. The words ‘there is only a step between
me and the grave’ would have been very appropriate
coming from him. But the solitary man on that narrow-
pointed rock, whose knees were sometimes washed by rising
waves, was apparently calmer than any of us; though we
could approach him within fifty yards he could not hear a
word we said; he could see us, and feel assured that we sympathised
with him in his terrible position.
rjan.i3.l8771 ZAIDI SEEMS A LOST MAN.
[ Ntunduru. J
“We then, after collecting our faculties, began to prepare
means to save him. After sending men to collect rattans,
ffe formed a cable, by which we attempted to lower a small
canoe, but the instant it seemed to reach him the force of
the current hurrying to the fall was so great that the cable
snapped like pack-thread, and the canoe swept by him like
an arrow, and was engulfed, shattered, split, and pounded
into fragments. Then we endeavoured to toss towards him
poles tied to creepers, but the vagaries of the current and
fjts convulsive heaving made it impossible to reach him with
| them, while the man dared not move a hand, but sat silent,
watching our futile efforts, while the conviction gradually
[settled on our minds that his doom, though protracted, was
¡certain.
“Then, after anxious deliberation with myself, I called for
another canoe, and lashed to the bow of it a cable consisting
of three one-inch rattans twisted together and strengthened
by all the tent ropes. A similar cable was lashed to the
side, and a third was fastened to the stern, each of these
cables being 90 yards in length. A shorter cable, 30 yards
long, was lashed to the stern of the canoe, which was to be
guided within reach of him by a man in the canoe.
“Two volunteers were called for. No one would step forward.
I offered rewards. Still no One would respond. But when I began
to speak to them, asking them how they would like to be in
such a position without a single friend offering to assist in
saving them, Uledi, the coxswain, came forward and said,
'Enough, master, I will go. Mambu Kwa Mungu’ -—‘My fate
iis in the hands of God’ — and immediately began preparing
himself, by binding his loin-cloth firmly about his waist. Then
Marzouk, a boat-boy, said, ‘ Since Uledi goes, I will go too.’
Other boat-boys, young Shumari and Saywa, offered their
services, but I checked them, and said, ‘You surely are not
tired of me, are you, that you all wish to die? If all my
brave boat-boys are lost, what shall we do?’
“Uledi and his friend Marzouk stepped into the canoe with