Our second day of misadventure came to an end; on the following morning we were again passing along banks void of trees. Towards midday we made a pause on the right bank by a charming grove, where trailing creepers (_Leptadenia_) dropped their pendants perpendicularly down, and bound the spreading boughs of the Shubahi acacias (_A. verugera_) to the ground, an apparatus admirably adapted to the gymnastic frolics of the little apes. Wherever anyone ventures to penetrate into the thickets he will not fail to find countless traces of animal life; snake-skins and feathers of many a species are scattered over the ground; tortoise-shells and fish-bones, the remains of the eagle’s feast; bones of animals; occasionally even human skeletons, perfectly entire. On the shore are the shell-fish left by the high water, especially the homes of the Ampularia (_A. Wernei_) as large as one’s fist, in its way a giant amongst the mollusks of the mighty river. [Sidenote: AMBATCH CANOES.] Warned by our experience we were ever on the alert against bees, keeping in readiness a bundle of straw and some faggots, in order to be able to kindle the dry grass immediately we had accomplished our excursion on the land. Towards midday we perceived with horror more bees in the shore-grass, and lost no time in getting across to the left bank. Here we came across numbers of Shillooks fishing in their light canoes of ambatch; darting through the water almost as swiftly as the fish themselves. This speed does not, however, prevent them from having a waddling movement, something like a duck, in their light craft. So light are these canoes that one man can carry three of them on his shoulder, although each canoe is capable of holding three men. From a few dozen shoots of ambatch of about three years’ growth, a canoe of this kind can be easily produced; at about six feet high the stem goes rapidly off to a point, so that a bundle of them needs only be tied together at the extremities, and there is at once attained a curve that would grace a gondola.[9] To use these canoes adroitly requires considerable practice, as the least shifting of the centre of gravity is made at the risk of a capsize. Nevertheless, they afforded me good service by taking me to the bank with dry feet, and by enabling me to make botanical collections from the floating bushes. When the Shillook has come to the end of his voyage, he seizes his gondola like an ancient warrior might his shield. He carries it, partly to ensure its safety and partly to allow it to dry, because the ambatch wood easily imbibes moisture and becomes saturated. [Illustration: Ambatch Canoe.]