The empty trunk lay on one side, and the night came down and the stars burned bright and tranquilly above, and all was silent in the wide solitude as Stanley sat and listened for the return of his men. But they came not, and the morning broke and the sun rode the tropical heavens once more in his splendor, but no musket-shot from the forest told of the returning scouts. The weary hours wore on and the emaciated men lay around in silent suffering. To Stanley those hours seemed days. Night again darkened the forest and still no sign of the returning party. Would they ever return? was the terrible question Stanley was perpetually putting to himself, and if not, what desperate movement should he attempt? The third morning broke as calm and peaceful as the rest; he was beginning to despair, when, suddenly, a musket-shot broke over the forest, and then another and another, sending sudden life and activity throughout the despairing camp. The men, as they emerged into view laden with food, were greeted with a loud shout, and the hungry wretches fell on the provisions they brought like ravening wolves. The report of abundance ahead so excited the men that they forgot their feebleness and clamored to be led on that very afternoon. Stanley was quite willing to get away from the jungle, filled with such painful associations, and cheerfully ordered the march, but before they could get away two men breathed their last in the camp and were left to sleep alone in the wilderness. That night they encamped at the base of a rocky hill, from which stretched away a broad plain. The hill, lifting itself into the clear air, and the open plain, seemed like civilization compared with the gloomy jungle in which they had been starving for the last two days, and where they had left two of their number. They awoke next morning cheerful and refreshed. Starting off with the prospect of abundant provisions ahead, they made a steady march of twenty miles and reached the district of Suna in Urimi. Stanley was surprised, on entering the rude village, to see a new type of African life. Men and women of great beauty and fine physical proportions met his astonished sight. They stood before him in all their naked beauty, unabashed: the women bearing children alone wearing a covering of goat skins, designed evidently as a protection against external injury, and not caused by any notions of modesty. Their fine appearance seemed to indicate a greater mental development than any other tribes which they had met. Whether this were so or not, it would be difficult to tell, for they were the most suspicious, reserved people Stanley had ever met, being greatly disinclined to barter provisions, of which they had more than they wanted, for cloth and beads, of which they apparently had none.