The villages on the right bank also maintained a tremendous drumming and blowing of war-horns, and their wild men hurried up with menace towards us, urging their sharp-prowed canoes so swiftly that they seemed to skim over the water like flying-fish. Unlike the Luavala villagers, they did not wait to be addressed, but as soon as they came within fifty or sixty yards they shot out their spears, crying out, “Meat! meat! Ah! ha! We shall have plenty of meat! Bo-bo-bo-bo, Bo-bo-bo-bo-o o!” Undoubtedly these must be relatives of the terrible “Bo-bo-bo’s” above, we thought, as with one mind we rose to respond to this rabid man-eating tribe. Anger we had none for them, it seemed to me so absurd to be angry with people who looked upon one only as an epicure would regard a fat capon. Sometimes also a faint suspicion came to my mind that this was all but a part of a hideous dream. Why was it that I should be haunted with the idea that there were human beings who regarded me and my friends only in the light of meat? Meat! _We?_ Heavens! what an atrocious idea! “Meat! Ah! we shall have meat to day. Meat! meat! meat!” There was a fat-bodied wretch in a canoe, whom I allowed to crawl within spear-throw of me; who, while he swayed the spear with a vigour far from assuring to one who stood within reach of it, leered with such a clever hideousness of feature that I felt, if only within arm’s length of him, I could have bestowed upon him a hearty thump on the back, and cried out applaudingly, “Bravo, old boy! You do it capitally!” Yet not being able to reach him, I was rapidly being fascinated by him. The rapid movements of the swaying spear, the steady wide-mouthed grin, the big square teeth, the head poised on one side with the confident pose of a practised spear-thrower, the short brow and square face, hair short and thick. Shall I ever forget him? It appeared to me as if the spear partook of the same cruel inexorable look as the grinning savage. Finally, I saw him draw his right arm back, and his body incline backwards, with still that same grin on his face, and I felt myself begin to count, one, two, three, four—and _whizz!_ The spear flew over my back, and hissed as it pierced the water. The spell was broken. It was only five minutes’ work clearing the river. We picked up several shields, and I gave orders that all shields should be henceforth religiously preserved, for the idea had entered my head that they would answer capitally as bulwarks for our canoes. An hour after this we passed close to the confluence of the Urindi—a stream 400 yards in width at the mouth, and deep, with water of a light colour and tolerably clear. We continued down river along the right bank, and at 4 P.M. camped in a dense low jungle, the haunt of the hippopotamus and elephant during the dry season. When the river is in flood, a much larger tract must be under water.