The night passed somehow. It seemed so long that I began to think or dream that I must be dead and waiting for my next incarnation, and when occasionally I half woke up, was only reassured by hearing Hans at my side muttering prayers in his sleep to my old father, of which the substance was that he should be provided with a half-gallon bottle of gin! At last a star that shone in the black riband far above vanished and the riband turned blue, or, rather, grey, which showed that it was dawn. We rose and stumbled into the canoe, for it was impossible to see where to place our feet, and started. Within a few hundred yards of our sleeping place suddenly the cliffs that hemmed in the river widened out, so that now they rose at a distance of a mile or more from either bank flat, water-levelled land. These banks, which here were steep, were clothed with great, dark-coloured, spreading trees of which the boughs projected far over the water and cut off the light almost as much as the precipices had done lower down the stream. Thus we still travelled in gloom, especially as the sun was not yet up. Presently through this gloom, to which my trained eyes had grown accustomed, I thought that I caught sight of tall, dark-hued figures moving between the trees. Sometimes these figures seemed to stand upright and walk upon their feet, and sometimes to run swiftly upon all fours. “Look, Hans,” I whispered—everyone whispered in that place—“there are baboons!” “Baboons, Baas!” he answered. “Were ever baboons such a size? No, they are devils.” Now from behind me Issicore also whispered, “They are the Hairy Men who dwell in the forest, Lord. Be silent, I pray you, lest they should attack us.” Then he began to consult with the rowers in low tones, apparently as to whether we should go on or turn back. Finally we went on, paddling at a double pace. A moment later a sound arose in that dim forest, a sound of indescribable weirdness that was half an animal grunt and half a human cry, which to my ears shaped itself into the syllables, _Heu-Heu!_ In an instant it was taken up upon all sides, and from everywhere came this wail of _Heu-Heu!_ which was so horrid to hear that my hair stood up even straighter than usual. Listening to it, I understood whence came the name of the god I had travelled so far to visit. Nor was this all, for there followed heavy splashes in the water, like to those made by plunging crocodiles, and in the deep shadow beneath the spreading trees I saw hideous heads swimming towards us. “The Hairy Folk have smelt us,” whispered Issicore again, in a voice that I thought perturbed. “Do nothing, Lord; they are very curious. Perhaps when they have looked they will go away.” “And if they don’t?” I asked—a question to which he returned no answer.