The right bank here rose again, high and steep, shadowed with a glorious forest, the islands were wooded to an intense blackness, and between them flowed the river in broad bands of silver. The left bank was so far off that we obtained no view of it! In a recess amid palms and vines and patriarchal trees, bound together by giant creepers of ficus and serpent-like lengths of _Calamus secundiflorus_, we sheltered our weary souls, and thought to do honour to the deity of those lonesome woods, who had reserved this loneliness to protect us in our outlawed state. _Feb. 1._—The sun came out above the forest, round and large and bright, shooting broad gleams of light into the island shades, and lighting up their gloom until they seemed most envied retreats. Not for us, however. Destiny urged us on. There were no retreats for us. Man refused us, and the forest rejected us, for it had nothing to support us. Almost straight the river flows—north-west half west. The right bank, to which we again cling, is steep and high, and crowned with solemn woods. At the water line is yellow clay; above it, alluvium and vegetable mould, on which a hundred varieties of tropical plants flourish. Presently we are made aware that we are approaching settlements, by a number of ditches excavated in the lower banks, at an obtuse angle to the course of the river, which during the flooding season will become filled by the full river and the resort of numerous fish. We had observed this before. The larger islands and banks ever since leaving the Stanley Falls, exhibited proofs of that love of the natives for fish which has stimulated them to undertake these laborious excavations, often over a hundred yards in length, to plait huge basket-traps and reedy fences at the mouths of creeks, to manufacture coils of stout rope out of plantain and palm (Hyphene) fibre, large cord nets, to plant great poles in the middle of cataracts, and undeterred by its dangers, to risk their lives daily in fish-catching.