At noon we looked round the elbow of the Aruwimi, which is in view of Yambuya, and saw above, about four miles, another rapid with its glancing waters as it waved in rollers in the sunshine; the rapids of Yambuya were a little below us. Beneath the upper rapids quite a fleet of canoes hovered about it. There was much movement and stir, owing, of course, to the alarm that the Yambuyas had communicated to their neighbours. At 4 P.M. we observed that the point we had gazed at abreast of the rapids consisted of islands. These were now being crowded with the women and children of Yankondé, whom as yet we had not seen. About a hundred canoes formed in the stream crowded with native warriors, and followed the movements of the column as it appeared and disappeared in the light and into the shadows, jeering, mocking, and teasing. The head of the column arrived at the foot of a broad cleared road, twenty feet wide and three hundred yards long, and at the further end probably three hundred natives of the town of Yankondé stood gesticulating, shouting, with drawn bows in their hands. In all my experience of Africa I had seen nothing of this kind. The pioneers halted, reflecting, and remarking somewhat after this manner: "What does this mean? The pagans have carved a broad highway out of the bush to their town for us, and yet there they are at the other end, ready for a fight! It is a trap, lads, of some kind, so look sharp." With the bush they had cut they had banked and blocked all passage to the forest on either side of the road for some distance. But, with fifty pairs of sharp eyes searching around above and below, we were not long in finding that this apparent highway through the bush bristled with skewers six inches long sharpened at both ends, which were driven into the ground half their length, and slightly covered with green leaves so carelessly thrown over them that we had thought at first these strewn leaves were simply the effect of clearing bush. Forming two lines of twelve men across the road, the first line was ordered to pick out the skewers, the second line was ordered to cover the workers with their weapons, and at the first arrow shower to fire. A dozen scouts were sent on either flank of the road to make their way into the village through the woods. We had scarcely advanced twenty yards along the cleared way before volumes of smoke broke out of the town, and a little cloud of arrows came towards us, but falling short. A volley was returned, the skewers were fast being picked out, and an advance was steadily made until we reached the village at the same time that the scouts rushed out of the underwood, and as all the pioneers were pushed forward the firing was pretty lively, under cover of which the caravan pressed through the burning town to a village at its eastern extremity, as yet unfired.