STILL RUNNING THE GAUNTLET ON THE RIVER. 465 
crest of which was probably 300 feet above the river. 
With my glass, from the fork of a tree twenty feet 
above the ground, I saw at once that a descent by the 
right side was an impossibility, as the waves were 
enormous, and the slope so great that the river’s face 
was all afoam ; and that at the base of the hilly ridge 
which obstructed its course the river seemed piling itself 
into a watery bank, whence it escaped into a scene of 
indescribable confusion down to the horror of whirling 
pools, and a mad confluence of tumbling rushing waters. 
It was now quite easy to understand why our friends 
the Kankore people, in attempting to illustrate the 
scene at the First Cataract, placed one hand overlapping 
the other — they meant to say that the water, driven 
with impetuosity against the hill, rose up and over- 
lapped the constant flow from the steep slope. 
I decided, therefore, to go down along the left stream, 
overland, and, to ascertain the best route, I took eight 
men with me, leaving five men to guard the boat. 
Within two hours we had explored the jungle, and 
“blazed” a path below the falls — a distance of two 
miles. 
Then returning to camp I sent Frank off with a 
detachment of fifty men with axes, to clear the path, 
and a musket-armed guard of fifteen men, to be stationed 
in the woods parallel with the projected land route, 
and, leaving a guard of twenty men to protect the 
camp, I myself rowed up river along the left bank, a 
distance of three miles. Within a bend, a mile above 
our camp, I discovered a small black-water river, about 
forty yards wide, issuing from the south-west, which I 
named Black River, from the colour of its water. Two 
miles above this, the affluent Lumami, which Living- 
stone calls “ Young’s River,” entered the great stream, 
by a mouth 600 yards wide, between low banks densely 
covered with trees. At noon I took an observation of 
the sun — the declination of which being south gave me 
a clear water horizon — and ascertained it to be south 
latitude 0° 32' 0". 
By noon of the 7th, having descended with the 
vol. n. 2 H 
