isembarked. Reeney gathered wood, made a fire and some tea, and we had a
good supper. We then divided, H. and I remaining to watch the boat, Max
and Annie on shore. She hung up a mosquito-bar to the trees and went to
bed comfortably. In the boat the mosquitoes were horrible, but I fell
asleep and slept till voices on the bank woke me. Annie was wandering
disconsolate round her bed, and when I asked the trouble, said, "Oh, I
can't sleep there! I found a toad and a lizard in the bed." When dropping
off again, H. woke me to say he was very sick; he thought it was from
drinking the river water. With difficulty I got a trunk opened to find
some medicine. While doing so a gunboat loomed up vast and gloomy, and we
gave each other a good fright. Our voices doubtless reached her, for
instantly every one of her lights disappeared and she ran for a few
minutes along the opposite bank. We momently expected a shell as a feeler.

At dawn next morning we made coffee and a hasty breakfast, fixed up as
well as we could in our sylvan dressing-rooms, and pushed on, for it is
settled that traveling between eleven and two will have to be given up
unless we want to be roasted alive. H. grew worse. He suffered terribly,
and the rest of us as much to see him pulling in such a state of
exhaustion. Max would not trust either of us to steer. About eleven we
reached the landing of a plantation. Max walked up to the house and
returned with the owner, an old gentleman living alone with his slaves.
The housekeeper, a young colored girl, could not be surpassed in her
graceful efforts to make us comfortable and anticipate every want. I was
so anxious about H. that I remember nothing except that the cold
drinking-water taken from a cistern beneath the building, into which only
the winter rains were allowed to fall, was like an elixir. They offered
luscious peaches that, with such water, were nectar and ambrosia to our
parched lips. At night the housekeeper said she was sorry they had no
mosquito-bars ready and hoped the mosquitoes would not be thick, but they
came out in legions. I knew that on sleep that night depended recovery or
illness for H. and all possibility of proceeding next day. So I sat up
fanning away mosquitoes that he might sleep, toppling over now and then on
the pillows till roused by his stirring. I contrived to keep this up till,
as the chill before dawn came, they abated and I got a short sleep. Then,
with the aid of cold water, a fres