After some monotonous hours of this unvarying prospect, with a rare glimpse of the far-away sea through some of the maze of creeks, we suddenly stick fast in the mud. Oh, those three hours! Our nude crew of fine stalwart Krooboys up to their waist in water pushing and tugging; the screw of the launch stirring up the horrors at the bottom, and the blistering sun on the fetid water, made up an ensemble I shall never forget. And so we dragged on all the weary day, now sticking fast, now going on a few miles, the consul’s secretary already down with fever; past several batteries of Gatling guns mounted upon canoes moored across the mouths of creeks, and past the river and town of Andony, with its little mud battery and six-pounder Krupp guns, until, turning sharply the corner of an island of jungle, we find ourselves in the Opobó river, with the distant sea and the white men’s hulks on the horizon. Soon we come to an inlet in the dense mass of verdure, and, passing the mournful wrecks of two hulks half submerged in the muddy ooze, we land, carried on the stalwart shoulders of our Krooboys to a little sandy gully, and are received by about three-quarters of the population of Ja-Ja’s kingdom, with perhaps a dozen yards of clothing amongst the lot. Some old muzzle-loading guns, nine and eighteen pounders, of obsolete pattern, were scattered about, half buried in the deep white sand, unused and unusable. Inward, following the course of the gully, was what may be called the main street of the town, although no attempt was made at uniformity, the houses, such as they were, merely mud and palm-leaf huts, being scattered at random under and amidst the great palms and india-rubber trees. Followed at a respectful distance by the male portion of the crowd, the females being generally rather shy of white men, and apparently desirous of hiding behind tree trunks and peeping round at us from afar, we advanced up the gully to the interior of the town.