The bow is of stubborn hard brown wood, about three feet long; the string is a broad strip of rattan carefully polished. To experiment with their power I drove one of the wooden arrows, at six feet distance, through two sides of an empty biscuit tin. At 200 yards' distance was a tall tree. I drove an arrow, with full force, over the top of the highest branch and beyond the tree. It dawned on us all then that these wooden arrows were not the contemptible things we had imagined. At a short distance we judged, from what we saw, that the stiff spring of this little bow was sufficient to drive one of these slender arrows clean through a human body. At 120 paces I have been able to miss a bird within an inch with one of them. At noon on the 15th of August the land column filed out of the palisaded villages of Avisibba led by Mr. Jephson, the officer of the day. As a captive had informed us that there were three cataracts ahead not far off, I instructed Mr. Jephson that he must follow the river and halt at the first convenient spot about 2.30 P.M.; that I would halt the river column, now consisting of the boat and fourteen canoes, until the rear guard under Captain Nelson had quite left the settlement; but as the canoes would proceed faster than the land caravan, I would probably overtake him, and camp at the first fit place I could find after an hour's row, in which event he would proceed until he found us. The instructions were also repeated to the leading men of the pioneers. [Illustration: WOODEN ARROWS OF THE AVISIBBA. (_From a photograph._)] I ought to have stated that our start at noon was occasioned by the delay caused by the discovery at the morning muster that five men were absent. They ultimately turned up at 10 o'clock; but this perpetual straying away without leave was most exasperating, and had drawn a lecture from me, though this was not uncommon in those stupid early days of training.