driven by their ferocity to seek the untravelled
and unpopulated island wildernesses. It was rather
amusing than otherwise to observe the readiness
of the savages of Irebu to fire their guns at us.
They appeared to think that we were human
waifs without parentage, guardianship , or means
of protection, for their audacity was excessive.
One canoe with only four men dashed down at
us from behind an island close to the left bank,
and fired point-blank from a distance of 100 yards.
Another party ran along a spit of sand and coolly
waited our approach on their knees, and, though
we sheered off to a distance of 200 yards from
them, they poured a harmless volley of slugs
towards us, at which Baraka,‘ the humourist, said
that the pagans caused us to “ eat more iron
than grain. ”
Such frantic creatures, however, could not
tempt us to fight them. The .river was wide
enough, channels innumerable afforded us means
of escaping from their mad ferocity , and if poor
purblind nature was so excessively arrogant,
Providence had kindly supplied us with crooked
by-ways and unfrequented paths of water which
we might pursue unmolested.
At noon of the 23rd we had reached i° 22' 15"
south latitude. Strong gales met us during each
day. The islands were innumerable, creeks and
channels winding in and out amongst the silent
scenes. But though their general appearance
rFeb. 23, 1877.1 Th e ISLANDS OUR REFUGES. 3 7
[ Irebu. J
was much the same, almost uniform in outline
and size, the islands never became commonplace.
Was it from gratitude at the security they
afforded us from the ruthless people of these
regions? I do not know, but every bosky island
into whose dark depths, shadowed by impervious
roofs of foliage, we gazed had about it something
kindly and prepossessing. Did we love
them because, from being hunted by our kind, and
ostracized from communities of men, we had
come to regard them as our homes? I cannot
tell, but I shall ever and for ever remember
them. Ah, had I but space, how I would revel
in descriptions of their treasures and their delights!
Even with their gad-flies and their tsetse, their
mosquitoes and their ants, I love them. There
was no treachery or guile in their honest depths;
the lurking assassin feared their twilight gloom;
the savage dared not penetrate their shades
without a feeling of horror; but to us they were
refuges in our distress, and their solitudes healed
our woes. How true the words, “ Affliction
cometh not out of the dust, nor doth trouble
spring out of the ground.” Innocence and peace
dwelt in the wilderness alone. Outside of them
glared the fierce-eyed savage, with malice and
rage in his heart, and deadly weapons in his
hand.
To us, then, these untenanted islets, with
their “ breadths of tropic shade, and palms in