STILL RUNNING THE GAUNTLET ON THE RIVER. 483 
were called. Still hugging the left bank, we presently 
came to a curious cavern in a smooth water-worn 
porphyry rock, which penetrated about a hundred feet 
within. At first I thought it to be the work of human 
hands, but examination of it proved that in old times 
there had extended a ledge of this porphyry rock nearly 
across river, and that this cavern had been formed by 
whirling eddies. At the farther end there are three 
modes of exit to the high ground above. Some natives 
had scrawled fantastic designs, squares and cones, on 
the smooth face of the rock, and, following their example, 
I printed as high as I could reach the title of our 
Expedition and date of discovery, which will no doubt 
be religiously preserved by the natives as a memento 
of the white man and his people who escaped being- 
eaten while passing through their country. 
Two miles below we came to some rocky straits and 
the ten islets of Kabombo. The current ran through 
these at the rate of about five knots an hour, but, 
excepting a few eddies, there was nothing to render 
the passage difficult. Down to this point the course 
of the great river had been north-east, north-north-east, 
and east-north-east, but below it sheered to north. On 
our right now began the large country of Koruru, and 
on our left Yambarri.* 
We descended rapidly for two miles down the river, 
here about 2000 yards wide, after which the hoarse 
murmur of falls was again heard. Our cannibal guides 
warned us not to venture near the left bank, and, 
relying on their information, we approached the Sixth 
Cataract along the right bank, and camped not 400 
yards from an island densely inhabited by a tribe of the 
Waregga called Wana-Bukura. 
We here released our cannibal guides, and surrendered 
their weapons to them. They availed themselves of 
their liberty by instantly running along the river bank 
up the river. We were not long left unmolested in our 
* Colonel Long, of the Egyptian army, on his way to the Xyam-Nyam 
country, in 1874, met with a tribe called the Yanbari, in about 5° north 
latitude. 
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