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-HOMEWARDS. 201 
Our canoes went six miles an hour down the stream. We 
shouted aw-revoir to one another without any presenti- _ 
ment that it was never “to the seeing again.” ‘Three 
months later my kind host of Msuata was drowned 
opposite his station. But I did not foresee this sad end 
to a bright career, so my parting was blithe and light- 
hearted. Everything seemed propitious to my journey. 
The sun shone brightly out of a pale-blue sky, unspotted 
by the slightest cloud, and his heat was tempered with 
the tenderest breeze blowing from the west, seeming to 
me like a message from the sea I was longing to greet. 
There was a general sense of bright activity in all things. 
The kingfishers and the bitterns had never sported with 
such activity, nor squeaked so lustily at every capture. 
The grey parrots were starting for their day’s excursion, 
and whistled melodiously as they whirred over our heads. 
Kven the very fish leapt in glad silvery shoals round 
the prow of the advancing canoe. The men sang and 
_ the paddles clove the water so energetically under their 
vigorous strokes, that my contentment was at times 
disturbed by the occasional showers of spray they flung 
over me and my goods. But I could not check their 
exuberance. It was too consistent with my own joy at 
being homeward-bound. Sometimes we raced the floating 
islands of arums and reeds, and beat them; but they 
were resigned to that, seeing they would easily catch us 
up in the night; sometimes we passed triumphantly 
poor staggering trees, torn up by their roots, with whole 
retinues of ferns, grasses, and parasitic plants attached, 
which were quite bewildered by the impetuous current 
that whirled them round and round, tossed them from 
side to side, rolled them over, and hurried them along, 
like miserable captives that they were, in its cruel clutch. 
One of these torn-up trunks was a species of Cassia, 
and its boughs were still in rich leaf and decked with 
beautiful yellow blossoms. Moreover, it carried quite a 
little population with it along its course. I noticed three 
lizards running up and down the branches, some butter- 
flies settled on the fragrant blossoms, and two water 
