352 
STANLEY'S JOURNEY THROUGH AFRICA 
clear spaces here and there were occupied by villages or used as 
market places by the tribes of this fluvial region. Noble tributaries, 
from a furlong to a mile in width, occasionally swelled the ever- 
increasing river, and revealed by their magnitude the great extent of 
country drained by the many waters of the Livingstone. 
Off the mouth of the Aruwimi, which is an important tributary 
to the great river on the right bank, and more than a mile wide at its 
confluence, a determined attack was made upon the travelers by about 
2,000 savages. They had the largest canoes yet met with—some con¬ 
taining more than ioo men—and rushed to the fray with all the 
“pomp and panoply of war” which presumptuous ignorance and over¬ 
weening pride in superior numbers led them to assume. Stanley 
coolly anchored his little fleet in mid-stream, and received them with 
such a succession of well-directed volleys that, in a comparatively short 
time, the heroes who had stalked to war sneaked gladly home. Thus 
ended the twenty-eighth pitched battle the unfortunate little fleet had 
been compelled to fight—harassing work indeed’ for strangers in a 
strange land. Truly might they be called Ishmaelifes, for everyone’s 
hand was against them, and theirs, perforce, against everyone. 
A hundred miles or so west of the Aruwimi the Livingstone 
reaches its most northerly point, and amid a perfect maze of islands 
the canoes, with the “Lady Alice” ever at their head, threaded their 
course in a southwesterly direction. A greater danger now lay in their 
path, for, for the first time, their opponents were armed with gun's 
brought up from the coast by native traders. When off the country of 
Bangala no less than sixty canoes, filled with men armed with fire¬ 
arms, attacked Stanley’s party; and with the overpowering odds of 
over three hundred guns to forty-four—now the full strength of the 
expedition. Fortunately for Stanley, both his ammunition and weap¬ 
ons were of a better stamp. For nearly five hours the conflict waged, 
and then victory rested, as it had so many times before, with the ever- 
victorious expedition. 
On the 9th of March, when encamped on the left bank for break¬ 
fast, a sudden attack made by natives, armed with guns, ended in 
another victory for Stanley, although it left him with fourteen men 
wounded. This wa« the thirty-second fight forced on him by the 
