We passed three small Arab timber-craft which were laying in a cargo of red and white mangrove trunks, and in many places floated small rafts of palm-fronds ready to be guided down-stream. At sunset the tide, running like a mill-race, compelled our crew to pole up a little inlet near Pombui or Kipombui, a village on the left bank, well stockaded with split areca trunks. The people who are subject to Zanzibar, and are claimed by Kimwere, flocked out to welcome their strangers, laid down a bridge of cocoa-ribs, brought chairs, and offered a dish of small green mangoes, here a great luxury. We sat under a tree till midnight, unsatiated with the charm of the darker hours. The moon rained molten silver over the black foliage and the huge fronds of the Devil’s Dates (Raphias); the stars gleamed like golden lamps hung unusually high in the limpid air, and Venus, the beautiful, glittered diamond-like upon the pure front of the firmament. The fireflies rose in a scatter of sparks—‘a shower of fire’ Southey has it—now all shone out simultaneously through the dark; then the glow melted away, as if by concerted impulse, amidst the glooms of the ground. At our feet rolled the black waters of the creek; in the jungle wild beasts roared fitfully; Leviathan and Behemoth crashed through the bush, and the night breeze mingled softly sighing sounds with the murmurs and the gurgling of the stream. About midnight, when the tide flowed strong, we resumed our way. The river then became a sable streak down the avenue of lofty trees except where a bend suddenly opened its mirrory surface to the reflection of the moon, and stretched it before us like a silver ribbon. The deep roar of the hippopotamus, the snorting, and the occasional blowing sounded close to our stern, and the crew begged me to fire for the purpose of frightening a certain pernicious ‘rogue’ whose villanies had gained for him the royal title of ‘Sultan Mamba,’ or King Crocodile: now we heard the splashing of the huge beasts, as they scrambled over the shoals; then they struggled with hoarse grunts up the miry slippery banks which led to fields and plantations; then, again, all was quiet as the grave. After a protracted silence, deep and drear, the near voice of a man startled us as though it had been some ghostly sound. At 2 P.M., reaching a cleared tract on the river-side, the ‘ghaut’ or landing-place of Chogwe, we made fast the canoe, looked to our weapons, and covering our faces against the clammy dew and the blinding, paralyzing moonlight, we lay down to snatch an hour’s sleep. The total distance rowed was about 13½ miles.