“Frank, you are thinking too much of the poor fellows we have lately lost. It is of no use, my son; we have taken the bit in our teeth, and must drive on—drive right through to the sea. The time for regret and sorrow will come by and by, but just now we are in the centre of Africa; savages before you, savages behind you, savages on either side of you. Onward, I say; onward to death, if it is to be. I will not listen to regrets now. Sing, my dear Frank, your best song.” He responded by singing:— “Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus Going on before!” This was too much for me. I saw that he was in a serious and religious vein of mind, and refrained therefore from disturbing him further. The boat-boys now resumed their barbarous but exhilarating chorus, and again the woods on either side re-echoed with the stirring notes of our boat- song. At 3 P.M. we arrived at a fine river, 300 yards wide at the mouth, which flowed from the east-south-east, with low wooded banks on either side. After proceeding a mile, we discovered another branch of the same river, about 300 yards wide, the two branches joining at about, two miles above. Subsequently we received two names for it—the Mburra and the Yaryembi—but I believe the Mburra is the correct title for the joint river. The great stream a mile below the confluence opened out again into a breadth of 2000 yards, and was soon disparted by the broad and fertile island of Ukioba into two branches of equal breadth. We preferred the right branch, which had a course north-west by north for about two miles, when it again deflected to west-north-west. Much of the right bank showed a horizontal substructure of sandstone, with about 10 feet of alluvium above it, and ranged from 20 to 100 feet in height, wooded throughout, except at market-greens and old settlements. We prepared to camp at one of these abandoned settlements, but a neighbouring community at Usimbi advanced to contest our right to remain on the soil of Koruru, and obliged us to continue our journey. We then chose the lower end of the Ukioba Island, nearly opposite Usimbi; but the stupid aborigines could not understand this forbearance, and, manning their canoes, called on the Wakioba to unite with them in expelling us. This compelled us to defend ourselves, which ended in the dispersion of the people of Koruru, and the capture of one of their war- vessels and five men. Their canoes differed from those above the Stanley Falls, being capacious, flat-bottomed scows, dug out of a fragrant gum-tree (probably of the genus Boswellia), which grows to very large dimensions in the forests.