through the dense vault of foliage, branch, and blossom, hear their voices, except as merged in the one great sound that filled all space, too large almost to be heard at all. In the midst, then, of this vast murmur of confused nature, we seemed to walk in absolute silence. The ear had grown so accustomed to it, that a sneeze was heard with a start, and the occasional knocking together of asses’ hoofs made every head turn suddenly, and every rifle move to the shoulder.
At the end of the three hours’ marching we came to a river, — perhaps that which Stanley, in his “Dark Continent,” names the Asna, — flowing northwest, with a width here of only one hundred yards, — a deep, slow -stream, crystal clear, flowing without a ripple or a murmur through the perpetual gloaming, between banks of soft, rich, black leaf-mould. We halted, and, after a rapid meal, re-formed in line, and marching for two miles easterly up the river, made a left wheel; and in the same order, and at the same pace as we had advanced, we continued nearly two hours rather in a northerly direction; and then making a left wheel again, started off due west, crossing the tracks of our morning’s march in our fourth mile, and reaching the Asna again in our tenth mile, — a total march of nearly thirty two miles, of which, of course, each man had traversed only one half on foot. No cooking was allowed, and our collation was therefore soon despatched, and before I had lighted my pipe and curled myself up I saw that all the party were snug under their mosquito nets.
I had noticed, when reading travellers’ books, that they always suffered severely from mosquitoes and other insects. I determined that I would not; so, before leaving Zanzibar, served out to every man twenty yards
