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as on this trip, each night they were out of sight of 

 the point they left in the morning. They must have 

 sweltered in the same heat, breathed the same heavy 

 air, cursed as they chewed at the same stringy chicken 

 and fought vainly, but everlastingly, the same sting- 

 ing flies all day and the same hosts of mosquitoes all 

 night. In those days, however, there must have been 

 some compensations denied to the present-day travel- 

 ler ; various excitements at least there would have 

 been to help the time along. Canoe-attacks by the 

 warrior Mandingoes, the natives of the country, can- 

 not have been infrequent ; a leopard might at any 

 moment spring off some overhanging tree, as the 

 vessel slowly skirted the shore or lay tied up for the 

 night, and such incidents as these, together with their 

 fresh-caught slaves, must have given variety to the 

 days and at any rate kept all on board more or less on 

 the qui vive, while of course they always had the 

 pleasureable excitement of profitable trade, and were 

 sure to be buoyed up with the hope of returning with 

 their holds full up with goods of price — ivory, gold, 

 palm-kernels or slaves — received in exchange for the 

 trumpery cargo of beads, looking-glasses or stair- 

 rods, which were under hatches when they entered the 

 river. For in those days the coast trade must have 

 been indeed profitable, and one does not wonder that 

 the cargoes brought back would always allure plenty 

 more venturers to fill the place of those who would 

 never return again, and whose bones were resting far 

 away beneath the rustling palms or at the bottom of 

 some dark and alligator-haunted creek. Half of each 

 crew might sicken and die from fever, sun or drink, 

 as must have been the case in the careless days of old. 



