Desirous of testing the character of the natives, we pulled across to the left bank, until, meeting with a small party of fishermen, we were again driven by their ferocity to seek the untravelled and unpopulated island wildernesses. It was rather amusing than otherwise to observe the readiness of the savages of Irebu to fire their guns at us. They appeared to think that we were human waifs without parentage, guardianship, or means of protection, for their audacity was excessive. One canoe with only four men dashed down at us from behind an island close to the left bank, and fired point-blank from a distance of 100 yards. Another party ran along a spit of sand and coolly waited our approach on their knees, and, though we sheered off to a distance of 200 yards from them, they poured a harmless volley of slugs towards us, at which Baraka, the humourist, said that the pagans caused us to “eat more iron than grain.” Such frantic creatures, however, could not tempt us to fight them. The river was wide enough, channels innumerable afforded us means of escaping from their mad ferocity, and if poor purblind nature was so excessively arrogant, Providence had kindly supplied us with crooked by- ways and unfrequented paths of water which we might pursue unmolested. _Feb. 23._—At noon of the 23rd we had reached 1° 22′ 15″ south latitude. Strong gales met us during each day. The islands were innumerable, creeks and channels winding in and out amongst the silent scenes. But though their general appearance was much the same, almost uniform in outline and size, the islands never became commonplace. Was it from gratitude at the security they afforded us from the ruthless people of these regions? I do not know, but every bosky island into whose dark depths, shadowed by impervious roofs of foliage, we gazed had about it something kindly and prepossessing. Did we love them because, from being hunted by our kind, and ostracized from communities of men, we had come to regard them as our homes? I cannot tell, but I shall ever and for ever remember them. Ah, had I but space, how I would revel in descriptions of their treasures and their delights! Even with their gad- flies and their tsetsé, their mosquitoes and their ants, I love them. There was no treachery or guile in their honest depths; the lurking assassin feared their twilight gloom; the savage dared not penetrate their shades without a feeling of horror; but to us they were refuges in our distress, and their solitudes healed our woes. How true the words, “Affliction cometh not out of the dust, nor doth trouble spring out of the ground.” Innocence and peace dwelt in the wilderness alone. Outside of them glared the fierce-eyed savage, with malice and rage in his heart, and deadly weapons in his hand.