352 STANLEY'S JOURNEY THROUGH AFRICA 



clear spaces here and there were occupied by villages or used as 

 market places by the tribes of this fluvial region. Noble tributaries, 

 from a furlong to a mile in width, occasionally swelled the ever- 

 increasing river, and revealed by their magnitude the great extent of 

 country drained by the many waters of the Livingstone. 



Off the mouth of the Aruwimi, which is an important tributary 

 to the great river on the right bank, and more than a mile wide at its 

 confluence, a determined attack was made upon the travelers by about 

 2,000 savages. They had the largest canoes yet met with — some con- 

 taining more than 100 men — and rushed to the fray with all the 

 "pomp and panoply of war'' which presumptuous ignorance and over- 

 weening pride in superior numbers led them to assume. Stanley 

 coolly anchored his little fleet in mid-stream, and received them with 

 such a succession of well-directed volleys that, in a comparatively short 

 time, the heroes who had stalked to war sneaked gladly home. Thus 

 ended the twenty-eighth pitched battle the unfortunate little fleet had 

 been compelled to fight — harassing work indeed* for strangers in a 

 strange land. Truly might they be called Ishmaelitfes, for everyone's 

 hand was against them, and theirs, perforce, against everyone. 



A hundred miles or so west of the Aruwimi the Livingstone 

 reaches its most northerly point, and amid a perfect maze of islands 

 the canoes, with the "Lady Alice" ever at their head, threaded their 

 course in a southwesterly direction. A greater danger now lay in their 

 path, for, for the first time, their opponents were armed with gun's 

 brought up from the coast by native traders. When off the country of 

 Bangala no less than sixty canoes, filled with men armed with fire- 

 arms, attacked Stanley's party; and with the overpowering odds of 

 over three hundred guns to forty-four — now the full strength of the 

 expedition. Fortunately for Stanley, both his ammunition and weap- 

 ons were of a better stamp. For nearly five hours the conflict waged, 

 and then victory rested, as it had so many times before, with the ever- 

 victorious expedition. 



On the 9th of March, when encamped on the left bank for break- 

 fast, a sudden attack made by natives, armed with guns, ended in 

 another victory for Stanley, although It left him with fourteen men 

 wounded. This was the thirty-second fight forced on him by the 



