In full view of this last camp there was an island in mid-river distant about two miles, that resembled a water battery, and a village lying low, apparently level with the face of the river. On exploring it on the 7th--by no means an easy task, so strong was the current sweeping down the smooth dangerous slope of river towards Panga--it appeared to have been originally a flat rocky mass of rock a few inches above high river, with inequalities on its surface which had been filled in with earth carried from the left bank. It measured 200 feet in length by about ninety feet in width, to which a piscatorial section of a tribe had retreated and built 60 cone huts, and boarded it round about with planks cut out of a light wood out of the forest and wrecked canoes. At this period the river was but six inches below the lowest surface of the island.
Another serious accident occurred on this day during the journey from above Panga Falls to Nejambi Rapids.
A witless, unthinking canoe coxswain took his canoe among the branches in broken water, got entangled, and capsized. Nine out of eleven rifles were recovered; two cases of gunpowder were lost. The Zanzibaris were so heedless and lubberly among rapids that I felt myself growing rapidly aged with intense anxiety while observing them. How headstrong human nature is prone to be, I had ample proofs daily. My losses, troubles, and anxieties rose solely from the reckless indifference to instructions manifested by my followers. On land they wandered into the forest, and simply disappeared, or were stabbed or pierced with arrows. So far we had lost eight men and seventeen rifles.
On the 8th the caravan had hauled the canoes past Nejambi Rapids, and was camped a few miles below Utiri. The next day we reached the villages, where we found the architecture had changed. The houses were now all gable-roofed and low, and each one surrounded by strong, tall, split log palisades, six feet long, nine inches by four inches wide and thick, of the rubiacæ wood. Constructed in two lines, a street about twenty feet ran between them. As I observed them I was impressed with the fact that they were extremely defensible even against rifles. A dozen resolute men in each court of one of these villages armed with poisoned arrows might have caused considerable loss and annoyance to an enemy.
