As I looked at the empty tent and the dejected, woe-stricken servants, a choking sensation of unutterable grief filled me. The sorrow-laden mind fondly recalled the lost man’s inestimable qualities, his extraordinary gentleness, his patient temper, his industry, cheerfulness, and his tender friendship; it dwelt upon the pleasure of his society, his general usefulness, his piety, and cheerful trust in our success with which he had renewed our hope and courage; and each new virtue that it remembered only served to intensify my sorrow for his loss, and to suffuse my heart with pity and regret, that after the exhibition of so many admirable qualities and such long faithful service he should depart this life so abruptly, and without reward. [Illustration: In Memoriam. FRANCIS JOHN POCOCK. _Drowned June 3, 1877._ ] When curtained about by anxieties, and the gloom created by the almost insurmountable obstacles we encountered, his voice had ever made music in my soul. When grieving for the hapless lives that were lost, he consoled me. But now my friendly comforter and true-hearted friend was gone! Ah, had some one but relieved me from my cares, and satisfied me that my dark followers would see their Zanjian homes again, I would that day have gladly ended the struggle, and, crying out, “Who dies earliest dies best,” have embarked in my boat and dropped calmly over the cataracts into eternity. The moon rose high above the southern wall of the chasm. Its white funereal light revealed in ghostly motion the scene of death to which I owed the sundering of a long fellowship and a firm-knit unity. Over the great Zinga Fall I sat for hours upon a warm boulder, looking up river towards the hateful Massassa, deluding myself with the vain hope that by some chance he might have escaped out of the dreadful whirlpool, picturing the horrible scene which an intense and morbid imagination called up with such reality, that I half fancied that the scene was being enacted, while I was helpless to relieve. How awful sounded the thunders of the many falls in the silent and calm night! Between distant Mowa’s torrent-rush, down to Ingulufi below, the Massessé, Massassa, and Zinga filled the walled channel with their fury, while the latter, only 30 yards from me, hissed and tore along with restless plunge and gurgle, and roaring plunged, glistering white, into a sea of billows. Alas! alas! we never saw Frank more. Vain was the hope that by some miracle he might have escaped, for eight days afterwards a native arrived at Zinga from Kilanga, with the statement that a fisherman, while skimming Kilanga basin for whitebait, had been attracted by something gleaming on the water, and, paddling his canoe towards it, had been horrified to find it to be the upturned face of a white man. CHAPTER XV.