“When called to the scene by his weeping friends, from my labours upriver, I could scarcely believe my eyes, or realise the strange chance which placed him there, and, certainly, a more critical position than the poor fellow was in cannot be imagined. The words ‘there is only a step between me and the grave’ would have been very appropriate coming from him. But the solitary man on that narrow- pointed rock, whose knees were sometimes washed by rising waves, was apparently calmer than any of us; though we could approach him within fifty yards he could not hear a word we said; he could see us, and feel assured that we sympathised with him in his terrible position. “We then, after collecting our faculties, began to prepare means to save him. After sending men to collect rattans, we formed a cable, by which we attempted to lower a small canoe, but the instant it seemed to reach him the force of the current hurrying to the fall was so great that the cable snapped like pack-thread, and the canoe swept by him like an arrow, and was engulfed, shattered, split, and pounded into fragments. Then we endeavoured to toss towards him poles tied to creepers, but the vagaries of the current and its convulsive heaving made it impossible to reach him with them, while the man dared not move a hand, but sat silent, watching our futile efforts, while the conviction gradually settled on our minds that his doom, though protracted, was certain. “Then, after anxious deliberation with myself, I called for another canoe, and lashed to the bow of it a cable consisting of three one- inch rattans twisted together and strengthened by all the tent ropes. A similar cable was lashed to the side, and a third was fastened to the stern, each of these cables being 90 yards in length. A shorter cable, 30 yards long, was lashed to the stern of the canoe, which was to be guided within reach of him by a man in the canoe. “Two volunteers were called for. No one would step forward. I offered rewards. Still no one would respond. But when I began to speak to them, asking them how they would like to be in such a position without a single friend offering to assist in saving them, Uledi, the coxswain, came forward and said, ‘Enough, master, I will go. Mambu Kwa Mungu’—‘My fate is in the hands of God’—and immediately began preparing himself, by binding his loincloth firmly about his waist. Then Marzouk, a boat-boy, said, ‘Since Uledi goes, I will go too.’ Other boat-boys, young Shumari and Saywa, offered their services, but I checked them, and said, ‘You surely are not tired of me, are you, that you all wish to die? If all my brave boat-boys are lost, what shall we do?’