_Jan. 29._—On the morning of the 29th we crossed the river, and finding Usimbi abandoned, entered it. The arrangement of the villages was the same as with the Wenya at the Stanley Falls, possessing lateral and transverse streets at right angles, and not consisting, as those on the Upper Livingstone, of one long street. Each house also possessed a court, neatly surrounded with a fence of upright logs. Behind, or on the inland side, the village was protected by two deep ditches, the earth from the excavations being thrown inwards. In the middle of what seemed to be a principal street was a rude wooden figure of a bearded man, under a small conical-shaped roof, which was supported by nine ivory tusks, raised upon a platform of tamped clay, and carefully swept, showing that great care was bestowed upon it. The people appear to have considerable faith in a whitewash of cassava meal, with which they had sprinkled the fences, posts, and lintels of doors, and the stems of the ficus, planted for shade here and there in small plazas. Great drums, 6 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 2 feet wide, resting on broad and solid legs, and carved out of a single log also stood in the plazas. We released our captives, and then crying out “Bismillah!” continued our voyage down river, which had a breadth of 2500 yards below Ukioba Island. Both banks were high, steep, and wooded. The right bank showed a reddish and rippled sandstone up to a foot above the water-line for a few miles below Usimbi. But the substructure afterwards changed to a greyish calcareous rock, with a perpendicular face varying from 20 to 50 feet high. Numerous creeks, 20 and 25 yards wide, emptied into the great river from the right bank. At noon, when approaching a large village, we were again assaulted by the aborigines. We drove them back, and obtained a peaceful passage past them, until 1 P.M. During this interval I obtained an observation for latitude, and ascertained we had reached north latitude 0° 22′ 29″. From 1 P.M. we were engaged with a new tribe, which possessed very large villages, and maintained a running fight with us until 4 P.M., when, observing the large village of Ituka below us, and several canoes cutting across river to head us off, we resolved to make our stand on the shore. Material for constructing a boma was soon discovered in the outlying houses of the village, and by five o’clock we were tolerably secure on the edge of the steep banks—all obstructions cleared away on the land side, and a perfect view of the river front and shore below us. [Illustration: SHIELDS OF ITUKA PEOPLE.]