Leaving the Bungundu district we steamed for many miles along a monotonous stretch of forest, and then reached the thickly populated line of Bokomela towns. Selecting the largest we could see, we turned our steamer towards it; and, putting our pretty little vessel along the beach in front of the chosen town, we prepared to go ashore. Through our glasses we had seen the women and children running hurriedly away, and the bustling activity of the men who lined the bank and stood on the trees overhanging the river. Just as we were about to step ashore we noticed that the men lining the bank above us had raised their spears in a very threatening attitude, and the old men on the trees had fitted their arrows to their bows ready to shoot at us. We recognized that we were in a tight corner; we wondered where the spears and arrows would strike us. A false movement would have been misunderstood, and a shower of sharp weapons would have been the result. Our pulses raced tumultuously, our hearts seemed to thump our ribs; but outwardly we were calm and self-possessed. We did not know until months later how near we were to a horrible catastrophe—to being, in fact, the principal dishes at a cannibal feast. In the best “trade language” we could muster we told the excited savages who and what we were. “Go away,” they screamed, “or we will kill you. We want nothing to do with you white men.” We tried to explain the purpose of our visit, and asked them to let the Bungundu men land and talk with them. And all the time we were standing unarmed within twenty feet of their upraised spears. There was a deadly silence on the little steamer, and the crew had taken refuge behind any and every thing that offered protection from those murderous lances and arrows. “Go away,” they shouted more fiercely; “we will kill the men if they come ashore, and all of you afterwards. We’ll have nothing to do with white men.” And in frantic unison the excited mob took up the cry of their head-men. There was nothing for it but to push off our steamer and leave the place. It was not until we were beyond the reach of their arrows that we breathed freely, and then fully realizing the whole meaning of the incident, and its possibilities of death to us and disaster to our plans, we bowed our heads in prayerful thanks to God for His protecting care.