Stripping to my shirt, I swam across the river to superintend operations at the landing-place on the opposite bank, I took four or five men, and we stood in the water up to our breasts, under the bank, where the current was a little less violent, and took the loads from the porters, who were exhausted by their struggle with the powerful current, as they brought them across. Young Koranja annoyed me by bringing my camera across under water, but then he was not very tall, and consequently received a ducking every time the rope surged. If he had not had my camera, I should have been highly amused at his predicament. The better to shout instructions across the river, I climbed a large tree that grew on the bank, its topmost branches hanging out over the water for some yards. I found such a comfortable seat in the fork, about twelve feet above the surface of the water, that I stayed there for awhile to rest after the laborious work at the landing-place, and also to get a bird’s-eye view of all that was going on. Presently I heard some one swimming, with much puffing and blowing, down the river, and almost underneath me. Peering through the leafy screen that surrounded me, I saw that Ramathani, though evidently in mortal terror, had at last faced the river, and was swimming slowly and cautiously down stream to the landing-place. The current was bringing him directly under my perch, though he had not observed me, and I derived much amusement from the anxious expression on his usually calm and expressionless visage. As he passed underneath something suddenly impelled me to jump out of the tree, and I did so, landing with a terrific splash right upon my unfortunate servitor. He gave a fearful shriek, which was almost instantaneously stifled in a gurgle as he disappeared beneath the surface. When he came up again his face wore such a look of terror that I half repented of the joke. The way his face changed when he found me swimming quietly by his side, smiling cheerfully, was a perfect study in expression. “Oh, it was you, Bwana?” he gasped out. “I thought it was an afreet” (devil) “or a kiboko” (hippopotamus). I then challenged him to a race across the river, but he declined, though ordinarily he was a good swimmer. He had had enough of the water for one day, he said. When I got down to the landing-place, I found that most of the loads were across, our men having been reinforced by some of the Maranga. These natives disdained the rope, and, strange to say, though many of them could not swim, they could carry a 60 lb. load across a ford 6 feet deep, though their own height rarely exceeded 5 feet 6 inches, and usually a great deal less. They surmounted the difficulty in a rather ingenious manner, which at the same time required no small skill.