He says: "We were soon up to our armpits, then the water shallowed to the knee, then we stepped up to the neck and waded on tiptoe, until we were halted on the edge of the Little Makata, which raced along at the rate of eight knots an hour." Fierce and rapid as it was, there was no course left but to swim it, and swim it they did. For a whole week they had been wading and swimming and floundering through water, till it seemed impossible that any one could survive such exposure, but, at last they came to dry ground and to the famous walled city of the Sultana Limbamwanni, which we described in his upward journey. But the heavy rains that had inundated the whole country, had so swollen the river, near the banks on which it was situated, that the water had carried away the entire front wall of the town, and some fifty houses with it. The sultana had fled and her stronghold had disappeared. All along the route was seen the devastating power of the flood as it swept over the country, carrying away a hundred villages in its course. The fields were covered with débris of sand and mud, and what was a paradise when he went in was now a desert. With the subsidence of the water the atmosphere became impregnated with miasma, and the whole land seemed filled with snakes, scorpions, iguanas and ants, while clouds of mosquitoes darkened the air till life became almost intolerable. At last, on May 2d, after forty-seven days of incessant marching, and almost continual suffering, they reached Rosako, where, a few minutes after, the three men he had sent forward arrived, bringing with them a few boxes of jam, two of Boston crackers, and some bottles of champagne; and most welcome they were after the terrible journey through the Makata Valley. The last great obstacle (a ferry of four miles across a watery plain) being surmounted, the caravan approached Bagomayo, and in their jubilant excitement announced its arrival by the firing of guns and blowing of horns, and with shouting hurrahs till they were hoarse. The sun was just sinking behind the distant forests, from which they had emerged and which were filled with such terrible associations, when they entered the town, and sniffed with delight the fresh sea-breeze that came softly stealing inland. The putrid air of the swamps, the poisonous miasma that enveloped the entire country, were left far behind with want and famine, and no wonder the heart was elated and their bounding joy found expression in exultant shouts.