The next day the march was continued as before, communication being kept up by those on the land and on the water by drum-taps. The villages they passed were deserted--every soul fleeing at their approach. Proceeding down the river, they came across six abandoned canoes more or less injured. Repairing these, they lashed them together as a floating hospital for the sick of the land party, the number of which had greatly increased from the exposures and hardships they were compelled to undergo. In the afternoon they came upon the first rapids they had met. Some boats, attempting their descent, were upset and attacked by the natives, who were, however, soon beaten off. Four Snider rifles were lost, which brought down on Pocoke, who had permitted the Arabs to run this risk, a severe rebuke, and a still severer one on the Arab chief, who had asked the former to let him make the attempt. The chief, enraged at the reproaches heaped upon him, went to Tipo-tipo, and declared that he would not serve Stanley any longer. This, together with the increased hostility of the natives, the alarming sickness, and the dangerous rapids, brought the head chief to Stanley with a solemn appeal to turn back before it was too late. But the latter had reached a point where nothing but absolute fate could turn him back. The rapids were passed in safety by the canoe--the Lady Alice being carried around them on men's shoulders. Natives were occasionally met, but no open hostility was shown for several days. The river would now be contracted by the bold shores, and rush foaming along and now spread into lake-like beauty, dotted with green islands, the quiet abodes of tropical birds and monkeys, which filled the air with a jargon of sounds. On the 4th of December they came to a long, straggling town, composed of huts only seven feet long by five wide, standing apart, yet connected by roofs, the intervening spaces covered and common to the inhabitants of both the adjacent huts. It was, however, deserted, like the rest. This persistent desertion was almost as dispiriting as open hostility, and an evil fate seemed to hang over the expedition. The sickness kept increasing, and day after day all that broke the monotony of the weary hours was the tossing over now and then of dead bodies into the river. The land party presented a heart-broken appearance as they crawled, at night, laden with the sick and dying, into camp. At this place Stanley found an old, battered, abandoned canoe, capable of carrying sixty people. This he repaired, and added it to his floating hospital.