262 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
in search of a cove and haven for our boat, while we 
should be bartering our beads for edibles. 
Bumbireh Island is about eleven miles in extreme 
length by two miles greatest breadth. It is in appear- 
ance a hilly range, with a tolerably even and softly 
rolling summit line clothed with short grass. Its slopes 
are generally steep, yet grassy or cultivated. It contains 
probably fifty small villages, averaging about twenty 
huts to a village, and if we calculate four souls to each 
hut, we have a population of about 4000 including all 
ages. 
Herds of cattle grazed on the summit and slopes ; a 
tolerably large acreage here and there showed a brown 
soil upturned for planting, while extensive banana 
groves marked most of the village sites. There was a 
o o 
kindly and 
pr osperous 
aspect about 
the island. 
As soon as 
we had sailed 
a little dis- 
tance along the 
coast, we 
WOODEN STOOLS, 
caught sight of a few figures which broke the even and 
smooth outline of the grassy summit, and heard the 
well-known melodious war-cries employed by most of 
the Central African tribes, “ Hehu-a-hehu-u-u-u ! ” loud, 
long-drawn, and ringing. 
The figures increased in number, and fresh voices 
joined in the defiant and alarming note. Still, hungry 
wretches as we were, environed by difficulties of all 
kinds, just beginning to feel warm after the cold and 
wet of the night before, iwith famine knawing at our 
vitals, leagues upon leagues of sea between us and our 
friends at Usukuma, and nothing eatable in our boat, 
we were obliged to risk something, reminding ourselves 
“ that there are no circumstances so desperate which 
Providence may not relieve.” 
At 9 a.m. we discovered a cove near the south-east 
