agrin we often felt at having been so
ill-served in our sorry craft.

Next day we arrived at the village of Mboma (16 degrees 56 minutes 30
seconds S.), where the people raised large quantities of rice, and were
eager traders; the rice was sold at wonderfully low rates, and we could
not purchase a tithe of the food brought for sale.

A native minstrel serenaded us in the evening, playing several quaint
tunes on a species of one stringed fiddle, accompanied by wild, but not
unmusical songs. He told the Makololo that he intended to play all night
to induce us to give him a present. The nights being cold, the
thermometer falling to 47 degrees, with occasional fogs, he was asked if
he was not afraid of perishing from cold; but, with the genuine spirit of
an Italian organ-grinder, he replied, "Oh, no; I shall spend the night
with my white comrades in the big canoe; I have often heard of the white
men, but have never seen them till now, and I must sing and play well to
them." A small piece of cloth, however, bought him off, and he moved
away in good humour. The water of the river was 70 degrees at sunrise,
which was 23 degrees warmer than the air at the same time, and this
caused fogs, which rose like steam off the river. When this is the case
cold bathing in the mornings at this time of the year is improper, for,
instead of a glow on coming out, one is apt to get a chill; the air being
so much colder than the water.

A range of hills, commencing opposite Senna, comes to within two or three
miles of Mboma village, and then runs in a north-westerly direction; the
principal hill is named Malawe; a number of villages stand on its tree-
covered sides, and coal is found cropping out in the rocks. The country
improves as we ascend, the rich valley becoming less swampy, and adorned
with a number of trees.

Both banks are dotted with hippopotamus traps, over every track which
these animals have made in going up out of the water to graze. The
hippopotamus feeds on grass alone, and, where there is any danger, only
at night. Its enormous lips act like a mowing-machine, and form a path
of short-cropped grass as it feeds. We never saw it eat aquatic plants
or reeds. The tusks seem weapons of both offence and defence. The
hippopotamus trap consists of a beam five or six feet long, armed with a
spear-head or hard-wood spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a
forked pole by a cord, which, coming down to the path, is held