The town of Ikondu was quite deserted, but food was abundant; the wine- pots were attached to the palm-trees, bananas were hanging in clusters, in the gardens were fine large melons, luxuriant plantations of cassava, extensive plots of ground-nuts, and great tracts of waving sugar-cane. We were very much dispirited, however. This desertion of their villages, without an attempt on the part of the natives to make terms, or the least chance of communicating with them, showed a stern contempt for the things of this life that approached the sublime. Whither had such a large population fled? For assuredly the population must have exceeded two thousand. [Illustration: A HOUSE OF IKONDU.] We were dispirited for other reasons. The small-pox was raging, dysentery had many victims, over fifty were infected with the itch, some twenty suffered from ulcers, many complained of chest-diseases, pneumonic fever, and pleurisis; there was a case or two of typhoid fever, and others suffered from prolapsus ani and umbilical pains; in short, there was work enough in the stricken Expedition for a dozen physicians. Every day we tossed two or three bodies into the deep waters of the Livingstone. Frank and I endeavoured our utmost to alleviate the misery, but when the long caravan was entering camp I had many times to turn my face away lest the tears should rise at sight of the miserable victims of disease who reeled and staggered through the streets. Poor creatures, what a life! wandering, ever wandering, in search of graves. At Ikondu, left high and dry by some mighty flood years ago, there was a large condemned canoe with great holes in its keel, and the traces of decay both at bow and stern, yet it was capacious enough to carry sixty sick people, and by fastening cables to it the boat might easily take it in tow. I therefore called my carpenters, Uledi the coxswain, Saywa, his cousin, and Salaam Allah, and offered twelve yards of cloth to each if they would repair it within two days. They required twelve men and axes. The men were detailed, and day and night the axes and hatchets were at work trimming poles into narrow planking. The carpenters fitted the boards, and secured them with wooden pins, and with the bruised pulp of banana and bark cloth they caulked it. Then the Wangwana were called to launch the monster, and we presently had the satisfaction of seeing it float. It leaked a good deal, but some of the sick were not so ailing but that they might bale it sufficiently to keep themselves afloat. The success of the repairs which we had made in this ancient craft proved to me that we possessed the means to construct a flotilla of canoes of sufficient capacity to float the entire Expedition. I resolved, therefore, should Tippu-Tib still persist in his refusal to proceed with us, to bribe him to stay with us until we should have constructed at least a means of escape.