The savages were hideously be-painted for war, one-half of their bodies being white, the other ochreous. Their shields were oblong squares, beautifully made of rattan-cane, light, tough, and to spears and knives impenetrable. A square slab of ebony wood with a cleat, and one long thin board placed lengthways, and another crossways, sufficed to stiffen them. Shouting their war-cries—“Ya-Mariwa! Ya-Mariwa!”—they rushed on our boma fences like a herd of buffaloes several times, in one of which charges Muftah Rufiji was killed, a broad spear-blade sharp as a razor ripping nearly eight inches of his abdomen open; another man received a wound from a spear, which had glanced along his back. As the heavy spears hurtled through the boma, or flew over it, very many of us had extremely narrow escapes. Frank, for instance, avoided one by giving his body a slight jerk on one side. We, of course, had the advantage, being protected by doors, roofs of houses, poles, brushwood, and our great Mwana-Ntaba shields, which had been of invaluable use to us, and had often in the heat of fights saved us and made us almost invulnerable. From the Ruiki river up to this afternoon of January 29th we had fought twenty-four times, and out of these struggles we had obtained sixty-five door-like shields, which upon the commencement of a fight on the river at all times had been raised by the women, children, and non-combatants as bulwarks before the riflemen, from behind which, cool and confident, the forty-three guns were of more avail than though there were 150 riflemen unprotected. The steersmen, likewise protected, were enabled to steer their vessels with the current while we were engaged in these running fights. Against the spears and arrows the shields were impervious. At sunset our antagonists retired, leaving us to dress our wounds and bury our dead, and to prepare for the morrow by distributing a new store of cartridges; and, after waiting until 9 A.M. next day unattacked, we sailed out and embarked once more. Below Ituka the river was deflected to north-west by west by a long ridge called Tugarambusa, from 300 to 500 feet high, with perpendicular red cliffs for four miles, until terminated by a point 300 feet high, the summit of which was crowned with a fine forest. Beyond the point we were sheltered by a sandstone bluff, and steep slopes covered by beautiful ferns, and shrubby trees with blossoms like lilacs, which exhaled a delightful fragrance. On the lower portions of the banks, where landslips had occurred, we observed a reddish sandstone capped by yellow clay. After six miles of these high banks the river flowed west by north half west, while the high banks already mentioned became a ridge, running north-west, leaving a lower level at its base extending to the river, which was highly populous and cultivated.