"Certainly I do," was the reply, "but for the moment I had forgotten it. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a boat like the _Lady Alice_ for navigating the lake?" "Of course it would," responded Frank; "but we haven't anything of the kind, and are getting along very well with the boats of King M'tesa." [Illustration: THE "LADY ALICE," IN SECTIONS.] "The _Lady Alice_," he continued, "was an invention of Stanley, and served his purpose admirably. She was forty feet long, six feet beam, and thirty inches deep, built of Spanish cedar, three-eighths of an inch in thickness. When finished she was separated into five sections, each of them eight feet long, so that she could be carried by porters from the coast to the Victoria N'yanza, and from one lake to another. Stanley launched the _Lady Alice_ on the Victoria N'yanza, which he circumnavigated. Afterward he made a similar voyage around Lake Tanganyika; and in the same boat he descended a portion of the Congo, or Livingstone, till he was compelled to abandon her on reaching the great falls of that river." "I remember now," said Fred, "that he went from Alice Island to Bumbireh, where he had a fight with the natives, and came near losing his life. That must be Bumbireh right ahead of us, I suppose?" "Yes," answered the Doctor, to whom the remark was partially addressed, "that is Bumbireh; but we will not land there, and run the risk of a reception similar to that of Stanley. We will pass along the channel between the large island and the main-land, and what we see of Bumbireh will be from our places in the boat." They moved steadily down the channel, and the boys made note of the fact that the island was fifteen or twenty miles long, and that the greater part of it was densely wooded. Near the water there was a strip of beach, sometimes broken by shelving rocks. Where the beach was sandy canoes were frequently visible, the most of them drawn up quite high and dry out of the water. Groups of natives came down to gaze upon the passing flotilla, and at one point there was a movement which indicated a possibility of hostilities. Several natives ran wildly up and down the sands, gesticulating violently, and evidently calling others to come out from the huts in the forest and make ready for a fight. Two or three canoes were pushed into the water, but nobody ventured to attack the flotilla. The islanders were doubtless restrained by motives of prudence, as they could easily see the white men in the boats, and they were well aware that the white men's weapons are not to be despised. After passing Bumbireh the expedition halted on a small island which was without inhabitants; but our friends were able to purchase all the fish they wanted from some boats which they encountered in the vicinity. They were now at the southern end of the N'yanza, and another day's run carried them to M'salala, which was at the end of a narrow gulf extending inland several miles, and was the limit of their boat journey.