It would seem strange that men who have been accustomed to obey him implicitly for nearly three years, and had stood by him so staunchly in many a fight and through countless perils, could so easily desert him now. But despair will make even a wise man mad, and these poor creatures had got into that hopeless condition which makes all men reckless. Starting off with no definite aim in view, no point to travel toward, shows how desperate they had become. No wonder they saw no hope in clinging to the river, for they had now been over a month going three miles, and it seemed worse than useless to attempt to push further in that direction. On the 23d of June, the work of hauling out the canoes to take them over a hill two hundred feet high was commenced, and by noon three were safely on the summit. Next came the Livingstone, which had been recently made. It weighed some three tons, yet, with the aid of a hundred and fifty natives, they had succeeded in getting it twenty feet up the bank, when the cables parted and it shot swiftly back into the river. The chief carpenter clung to it, and being carried beyond his depth, climbed into it. He was only a short distance above the falls when the brave Uledi, seeing his peril, plunged into the river and swimming to the boat, called out to him to leap overboard instantly. The poor wretch replied that he could not swim. "Jump," shouted Uledi, "you are drifting toward the cataract." The terrified creature, as he cowered in the canoe, faltered out, "I am afraid to." "Well, then," said Uledi, "you are lost--brother, good-bye," and struck out with all his might for the shore. A minute's longer delay, and he, too, would have been lost, for, though a strong swimmer, he was able, only by the most desperate effort, to reach shore less than sixty feet from the brink of the falls. The next minute the canoe was shooting over them into the boiling cauldron below. Tossed up and down and whirled about, it finally went down and was seen no more.