264 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
twenty yards over the rocky beach high and dry, 
leaving us almost stupefied with astonishment ! 
Then ensued a scene which beggars description. Pan- 
demonium — all its devils armed — raged around us. A 
forest of spears was levelled ; thirty or forty bows were 
drawn taut ; as many barbed arrows seemed already on 
the wing ; thick, knotty clubs waved above our heads ; 
two hundred screaming black demons jostled with each 
other and struggled for room to vent their fury, or for 
an opportunity to deliver one crushing blow or thrust 
at us. 
In the meantime, as soon as the first symptoms of 
this manifestation of violence had been observed, I had 
sprung to my feet, each hand armed with a loaded self- 
cocking revolver, to kill and be killed. But the apparent 
hopelessness of inflicting 
much injury upon such 
a large crowd restrained 
me, and Safeni turned 
to me, though almost 
cowed to dumbness by 
the loud fury around 
us, and pleaded with me 
to be patient. I com- 
plied, seeing that I 
should get no aid from my crew ; but, while bitterly 
blaming myself for my imprudence in having yielded 
— against my instincts — to placing myself in the power 
of such savages, I vowed that, if I escaped this once, 
my own judgment should guide my actions for the 
future. 
I assumed a resigned air, though I still retained my 
revolvers. My crew also bore the first outburst of the 
tempest of shrieking rage which assailed them with 
almost sublime imperturbability. Safeni crossed his 
arms with the meekness of a saint. Baraka held his 
hands palms outward, asking with serene benignity, 
“ What, my friends, ails you ? Do you fear empty 
hands and smiling people like us ? We are friends, we 
came as friends to buy food, two or three bananas, a 
