For a short time, the dug-out was a scene of wild confusion, every man endeavouring to seize a pole or paddle; but she soon reached the bank and was empty in a twinkling, and when I drifted past the landing-place not a soul was in sight. At the first outburst of noise, the hippopotamus had dived, and I now saw him near the top of the reach going up stream at a speed that filled me with envy. The remainder of the day passed with little incident. When the rain fell, I set up the tilt and lowered the drag, and when it was fine I lowered the tilt and paddled. Once I had to unload the canoe to take her down some rapids, but this caused only a trifling delay; and by the time I let go my anchor for the night in the shelter of a sandbank, I reckoned I had travelled over sixty miles since daybreak. The next two days saw a repetition of the experiences I have recorded above. One or two unloadings and restowings, one actual portage of a couple of hundred yards, a little paddling, and a great deal of drifting in the heavy rain, would be the principal items in my log. I saw surprisingly few people, a fact that was probably accounted for by the almost incessant rain--for the African is not more partial to getting wet than other people; nor was I troubled any more by animals until the latter half of the fifth day, when the crocodiles began to be unpleasantly numerous and of portentous size. Even these reptiles did not actually molest me, but they were very disagreeable objects to look at, under the circumstances, as they lay on the bank with their enormous jaws agape, while the little spur-winged plover ran round them and peered into the yawning cavities in search of leeches. I turned in that night with much less feeling of security than I had hitherto experienced, for I felt that if one of these immense brutes should take it into his ugly head to climb on to the canoe, he would either capsize it or scratch a hole through the skin. But nothing untoward happened in the night, and I woke in the morning in high spirits and full of hope. Indeed, the greater, and by far the most perilous, part of my voyage was over, for the great width of the river, as well as the time I had been on my journey, told me that the coast could not be far off; and once on the coast, was I not in the protected territory of His Britannic Majesty? In a land of incorruptible police and district commissioners without spot or wrinkle?