We sailed away with the wind favouring our criminal action, for our men had again come on board before the firing commenced. The Dahabiës sailing ahead of us must have heard our shots; they did not however furl _one_ sail to lend us assistance, which might have been eventually necessary. Before we caught up these vessels, we saw a woman on the shore, looking about among the dead men, and then afterwards running to the city at some distance from the shore. The natives were hastening towards it, but they did not trust themselves near us. Yet they knew not the melancholy truth that our shots would hit at a distance; hitherto they feared only the thunder and lightning of them, as we had seen several times. We halted a moment; the unhappy creatures or relatives of the slain came closer to the border of the shore, laid their hands flat together, raised them above their head, slid upon their knees nearer to us, and sprang again high in the air, with their compressed hands stretched aloft, as if to invoke the pity of heaven, and to implore mercy of us. A slim young man was so conspicuous by his passionate grief, that it cut to my heart, and—our barbarians laughed with all their might. This unbounded attachment to one another, and the circumstance that that woman, in spite of the danger so close at hand, sought for the man of her heart among those who had perished, affected me exceedingly, because such moral intrinsic worth, flowing from pure natural hearts, is unfortunately more acquired than innate in civilised nations. We had only advanced a little on our way, and above thirty unarmed natives, who must yet at all events have been informed of the tragical incident that had just occurred, sat down on the sand directly close to the river, without suspicion, or designing any harm to us, as if nothing had taken place, and really—I had enough to do to prevent their being shot at.