During their passage occurred one of the most thrilling scenes in all this long journey through the Dark Continent. The canoes were being floated down a long rapid. Six had passed in safety. The seventh, manned by Muscati, Uledi Muscati, and Zaidi, a chief, was overturned in a difficult piece of the water. Muscati and Uledi were rescued by the eighth canoe; but Zaidi, clinging to the upturned canoe, was swept past, and seemed on the point of being hurled over the brink of the fall. The canoe was instantly split in two, one part being caught fast below the water, while the other protruded above the surface. To the upper part Zaidi clung, seated on the rock, his feet in the water. Below him leapt and roared the fall, about fifty yards in depth; above him stretched fifty feet of gradually sloping water. Mr. Stanley and a part of the expedition were at this time on the banks. No more strange and perilous position than that of Zaidi can be imagined. A small canoe was lowered by means of a cable of ratans; but the rope snapped and the canoe went over the falls. Poles tied to creepers were thrown toward him but they failed to reach. The rock was full fifty yards from the shore. Stanley ordered another canoe, fastened by cables, to be lowered. Only two men could be found to man it——Uledi, the coxswain of the “Lady Alice,” and Marzouk, a boat boy. “Mamba Kwa Mungu,” exclaimed Uledi, “My fate is in the hands of God.” The two men took their places in the canoe and paddled across the stream. The cables which held the boat against the current were slackened, and it dropped to within twenty yards of the falls. A third cable was thrown from the boat toward Zaidi, but he failed to catch it till the sixth throw. Just as he grasped it the water caught him and carried him over the precipice. All thought him lost, but presently his head appeared, and he seemed still to have hold of the cable. Stanley ordered the canoemen to pull. They did so, but the upper cables of the canoe broke and it was carried toward the falls. Fortunately it caught on a rock, and Uledi and Marzouk were saved. They still had hold of the cable which Zaidi clung to. By dint of hard pulling they were enabled to save, for they dragged him back up the falls to their own perilous position. There were three now on the rock instead of one. Twenty times a cable loaded with a stone was thrown to them before they caught it. They drew it taut and thus had frail communication with the shore. But it was now dark and nothing more could be done till light came. In the morning it was decided that the cable was strong enough to hold the men if they would but try to wade and swim to shore. Uledi dared it, and reached land in safety. The others followed, and terminated an anxious scene. [Illustration: RESCUE OF ZAIDI.]