chap, xil] VOYAGE VP THE VICTORIA NILE. 361 
On arrival at the canoes we found everything in 
readiness, and the boatmen already in their places. A 
crowd of natives pushed us over the shallows, and 
once in deep water we passed through a broad canal 
which led us into the open channel without the labour 
of towing through the narrow inlet by which we had 
arrived. Once in the broad channel of dead water we 
steered due east, and made rapid way until the even¬ 
ing. The river as it now appeared, although devoid 
of current, was an average of about 500 yards in 
width. Before we halted for the night I was sub¬ 
jected to a most severe attack of fever, and upon the 
boat reaching a certain spot I was carried on a litter, 
perfectly unconscious, to a village, attended carefully 
by my poor sick wife, who, herself half dead, followed 
me on foot through the marshes in pitch darkness, 
and watched over me until the morning. At day¬ 
break I was too weak to stand, and we were both 
carried down to the canoes, and, crawling helplessly 
within our grass awning, we lay down like logs while 
the canoes continued their voyage. Many of our men 
were also suffering from fever. The malaria of the 
dense masses of floating vegetation was most poisonous; 
and, upon looking back to the canoe that followed in 
our wake, I observed all my men sitting crouched 
together sick and dispirited, looking like departed 
spirits being ferried across the melancholy Styx. 
The river now contracted rapidly to about two 
hundred and fifty yards in width about ten miles 
from Magungo. We had left the vast flats of rush 
banks, and entered a channel between high ground, 
forming steep forest-covered hills, about 200 feet on 
either side, north and south : nevertheless there was 
no perceptible stream, although there was no doubt 
that we were actually in the channel of a river. The 
water was clear and exceedingly deep. In the 
evening we halted, and slept on a mud bank close 
to the water. The grass in the forest was very high 
and rank: thus we were glad to find an open space 
