202 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
wagtails sunning and pluming themselves, as if they had 
chosen the floating tree-stem as a temporary home.* I 
began to think my day’s journey was to be deliciously 
tranquil, forgetting that in “Africa agreeable anticipa- 
tions are rarely realized. Towards noon, clouds began to 
collect in the east, from which quarter the rain always 
seems to come in this part of the Congo region. The 
wind was certainly blowing from the opposite direction, 
but this had little effect on the approaching storm, now 
fast covering the heavens with a blue-black pall, for 
storms in Africa are too imperious to care for the direction 
of the prevailing wind. ‘hey carry with them in their 
black bosoms a hurricane of their. own, which goes before 
them in awful gusts and bellowings, and utterly silences 
the timid breeze that was feebly keeping back the rain. 
So, when the eye of the storm, a whirling mass of grey | 
cloud round a purple centre, rose before us, we prudently 
put into the bank, tied the canoes to some stout trees, 
and then resignedly bent our heads to the tempest that 
roared over us. ‘The storm was finished in a brief half- 
hour, but not so the rain, which dripped and dripped 
incessantly : yet I was too impatient to delay any further 
for this, and made the men take to their paddles once 
more. In spite of the wet weather, we achieved con- 
siderable progress. At about half-past five, we were 
coasting beside a very long and narrow island, in search 
of a camping-place, when I saw, not ten yards off, a large 
elephant, with moderate-sized tusks, standing amongst 
the high grass at the water's edge. He looked superb 
against the graceful glaucous-green Hyphcene palms 
which afforded such an artistic background. I did not — 
shoot at him; firstly, because it would have spoiled the © 
picture, and secondly because a bullet from a Winchester 
rifle could do him but little harm. We stayed and 
watched the mighty beast some five minutes, he not 
taking the least notice. His colour told out quite greyish-_ 
white (the ridge of his back-bone was particularly light 
* On many rivers these floating trees must serve as a great Means 
for the diffusion of species, ey 
