For some reason we crossed the river, and camped on the right bank, two miles below Chumbiri. At midnight the Wy-yanzi awoke us all by the fervour with which they implored their fetishes to guide us safely from camp to camp, which they named. As they had been very successful in charming away the rain with which we had been threatened the evening before, our people were delighted to hear them pray for success, having an implicit faith in them. Just below our camp the river contracted to 2500 yards, between two high hilly banks, and 400 to 600 feet high. _Mar. 8._—A violent rain-storm began at 8 A.M. of the 8th, which lasted four hours. We then made a start, but after an hour of our company the escort lagged behind, but told us to continue our journey, as they would overtake us. Though I strongly suspected that the Wy-yanzi intended to abandon us, we could find no reasonable cause to doubt them, and therefore proceeded without them until near sunset. We camped in the midst of a dense jungly forest. About an hour after, the camp was alarmed by the shrieks of a boy, who was about to be attacked by a python, which vanished in the woods when the people rushed to the rescue. The boy said he had hailed it at first, imagining it to be one of his friends. In half an hour the python, or another one, was discovered in a different part of the camp, about to embrace a woman in its folds; but this time, after tremendous excitement, the monster was despatched. It measured only 13 feet 6 inches in length, and 15 inches round the thickest part of the body. _Mar. 9._—At early dawn we continued our journey along the right bank, and about 7 A.M. discovered a rapid river about two hundred and fifty yards wide, having two mouths, to which I have given the name of Lawson River, after Mr. Edward Levy Lawson. The water was of a very light colour. [Illustration: SON OF THE KING OF CHUMBIRI.] The water of the Ikelemba river, which enters the Livingstone above Ikengo in about 12′ south latitude, did not commingle with that of its great recipient until both had flowed side by side in the same bed for about 130 miles, or near Bolobo. Its strong-tea-coloured water had now quite changed the complexion of the Livingstone; for, while above Bolobo it had a clear whitey-grey colour, it was now of a deep brown. The other tea-coloured rivers, such as the Ruiki, Kasuku, and Black, above the Stanley Falls, had soon become absorbed by the waters of the Livingstone. Below the last affluent the Livingstone narrowed to 1500 yards, and flowed with a perceptibly quickened current through the deep chasm in the table-land, the slopes of which were mostly uninhabited; but on the summit near the verge, on either side, villages, banana plantations, and other signs of population were visible. I tossed my lead into the stream in this comparatively narrow channel, and obtained at the first cast 158 feet; half an hour afterwards I obtained 163; a third time, 79 feet.