r Denham freely owns in his journal that the
attack was unjustifiable and did not deserve to succeed. However,
neither he nor any of his personal attendants took part in the fighting,
and the opportunity of seeing the country and the native methods of
warfare, together with the chance of an adventure, were too attractive
to be missed; and certainly, so far as excitement was concerned, the
daring Englishman got enough and to spare before he rejoined his friends
at Kouka.

The attacking party found the enemy stronger than they had expected, and
their advance on the position they hoped to storm was met by storms of
poisonous arrows, which scattered their cavalry in hopeless disorder.
Major Denham found himself obliged to turn his horse's head with the
rest, and fly before the foe, who followed with yells of vengeance, and
fresh flights of the deadly arrows.

Denham's horse was wounded and fell with him, then, maddened by fright
and pain, struggled up, unseating his rider, and dashed away into the
bush, leaving the Major surrounded by the enemy. He received two
spear-wounds, mercifully not poisoned, was instantly stripped of most of
his clothes by his captors, and gave himself up for lost. But the novel
garments so delighted the natives that they left the late wearer while
they wrangled over the spoils.

Denham, wounded as he was, determined on a dash for safety, slipped into
the bushes, and ran as fast as he could, the thorns of the tropical
plants tearing his defenceless feet as he went. A river, flowing between
high banks, barred his way, and he had seized a bough to swing himself
down when a new peril appeared--the head of a snake, one of the most
deadly of African serpents, thrust out close to him from among the dense
foliage! Either the horror-stricken fugitive lost his hold, or his
involuntary recoil broke the bough to which he clung; at any rate he
fell headlong into the stream below him. The shock of the cold plunge
brought back his failing senses, and he struck out boldly for the
opposite bank, reaching it in safety, though almost at the end of his
powers. He had distanced his pursuers for the time being, but his
position, as he dragged himself ashore, was terrible enough to have
daunted even his brave spirit. He was alone in the enemy's country,
wounded, without food or weapons, and night coming on--the night of
tropical Africa, when the reign of wild-beast life begins. His first
thought was to find some tree,