Strux's proposition was unanimously adopted. It was agreed to construct a series of subsidiary triangles until a side could be measured with the platinum rods. The steamboat, descending the affluents of the Zambesi, was to await the travellers below the celebrated Victoria Falls. Every thing being arranged, the little troop, with the exception of four sailors on board the "Queen and Czar," started the next day at sunrise. Some stations had been chosen to the east and the angles measured, and along this favourable country, they hoped easily to accomplish their auxiliary series. The bushman had adroitly caught a quagga, of which, willing or unwilling, he made a beast of burden to carry the theodolite, the measuring-rods, and some other luggage of the caravan. The journey proceeded rapidly. The undulated country afforded many points of sight for the small accessory triangles. The weather was fine, and it was not needful to have recourse to nocturnal observations. The travellers could nearly always find shelter in the woods, and, besides, the heat was not insufferable, since some vapours arose from the pools and streams which tempered the sun's rays. Every want was supplied by the hunters, and there was no longer any thing to be feared from the natives, who seemed to be more to the south of Lake Ngami. Matthew Strux and the Colonel seemed to have forgotten all their personal rivalry, and although there was no close intimacy between them, they were on the most perfect terms of courtesy. Day after day, during a period of three weeks, the observations steadily proceeded. For the measurement of a base the astronomers required a tract of land that should be level for several miles, and the very undulations of the soil that were desirable for the establishment of the points of sight were unfavourable for that observation. They proceeded to the north-east, sometimes following the right bank of the Cnobi, one of the principal tributaries of the Upper Zambesi, in order to avoid Maketo, the chief settlement of the Makololos. They had now every reason to anticipate that their return would be happily accomplished, and that no further natural obstacle would occur, and they hoped that their difficulties were all at an end. The country which they were traversing was comparatively well known and they could not be far from the villages of the Zambesi which Livingstone had lately visited. They thus thought with reason that all the most arduous part of their task was over, when an incident, of which the consequences might have been serious, almost compromised the result of the whole expedition. Nicholas Palander was the hero, or rather was nearly being the victim, of the adventure.