Tremolavano i rai del sol nascente Sovra l’onde del mar purpuree e d’oro, E in vesti di zaffiro il ciel ridente, Specchiar parea le sue bellezze in loro. D’Africa i venti fieri e d’Oriente, Sovra il letto del mar prendean ristoro.—TASSONI. Leaving directions with Lakhmidas to land and lodge our cockroach-gnawed luggage, and deputing Saíd bin Salim, supported by our two Portuguese servants and his three slaves, to protect it, we set out on the morning after our arrival to visit M. Rebmann of the ‘Mombas Mission’ at Kisulodi-ni, his station. Before the sun gained power to destroy the dewy freshness of dawn, we slowly punted up the northern sea-arm which bounds the Mombasah islet: in our heavy ‘dau’—here all the lesser craft are so called—manned by two men and a small boy, we justified the stern Omar’s base comparison for those who tempt the sea, ‘worms floating upon a log.’ Whilst threading the channel our attention was attracted by groups of market people, especially women, who called to be ferried across. On the part of our crew the only acknowledgment was an African modification of Marlow Bridge, far-famed amongst bargees. Sundry small settlements, bosomed in thick undergrowth, relieved by brabs, cocoas, and the W-shaped toddy-tree, appeared upon each ‘adverse strand.’ After a two miles’ progress, lame as the march of civilisation at S’a Leone, we entered Port Tudor, a salt-water basin, one of the canals of Mombasah Bay, about two miles broad, and in depth varying from one to fifteen fathoms. Broken only by the ‘Rock of Rats,’ and hedged on both sides by the water-loving mangrove, it prolongs itself towards the interior in two tidal river-like channels for about ten miles, till stopped by high ground. The northern is named ‘Water of the Wakirunga,’ and the north-western ‘Water of the Rabai,’ from tribes owning the banks. Captain Owen has christened them respectively William Creek and River Barrette, after the officers who aided in his survey. Similarly, Port Reitz, to the south-west, projects a briny line called ‘Water of Doruma’—the region which it drains—and receiving the Muache, a sweet rivulet that flows from uplands 20 to 30 miles from the coast. Such in nature is the Tuaca, or Nash river, which defaces our maps. It is a mere confusion with Mtu Apa, the ‘River Matwapa’ of Captain Owen, a village and a little runnel five miles north of Mombasah. Lieut. Emery mentions the ‘hamlet of Mtuapa, situated at the entrance of a small river, which runs about sixteen miles into the country.’ Like the Cuavo, or great ‘Quiloa river,’ a salt-water inlet receiving during the rainy season the surface drainage of a seaward slope, the ‘Tuaca’ becomes a noble black streak, dispensing the blessings of intercourse and irrigation athwart three inches of white paper. The presence of such rivers must always be suspected: they would long ago have fundamentally altered the social