If the traveller be able to stand, he is certain to be standing now and watching with the greatest anxiety, but see! the men are already able to touch the bank with their poles! One has done so, but alas! his thrust is ill timed, and the boat swings right round till its head is again looking towards Mazaro. Oh! this is dreadful, is that foolish poke at the bank to undo all our efforts? It looks as if it would, and the boat is going at a terrible speed; but in a few minutes the doubt is solved, and the prow of the boat runs full tilt against the bank just at the little promontory that we are trusting to. The effect is quite magical. Everyone knows what happens if, while he is riding at full speed, his horse stops without giving the slightest warning. So it was here. The boat was brought to a dead stand before the passengers had time to acquiesce in the arrangement. The crew were jostled against each other at a terrible rate: some spread themselves out at full length along the sides of the boat while others narrowly escaped a ducking in the river. But the great study was the white man. All the natives like to see how the Englishman behaves in an emergency. This personage is standing on a narrow platform a few inches higher than the rest, and just at the most interesting point in the collision, he is observed, apparently quite regardless of consequences, to make a desperate dive headforemost into the bottom of the boat, his head coming into contact with a pile of plates and pots that had been stowed away there. From this adventure he returns with his face cut and bleeding, but he ought to have remembered his “mechanics” more promptly. Still the situation was much better than being carried down the stream again. The boatmen after their success held on by the reeds and pulled the boat along the side of the bank with all their might, and in a short time we were above the dreaded current. Poor fellows, how much work they might have spared themselves by a little method! I began to speculate on how different our situation would have been if our boat had been manned by Scotch fishermen: but I remembered that the sun which shone so pleasantly all day on these negroes might have been too much for my countrymen.