declined, saying that it was as much as his head was worth to accept a gift from either a black man or a white before the king had received one.
Late in the afternoon of the 17th we made our way to a great baobab close to the landing-place on the Zambesi known as “Makumba’s haven.” The boatmen put up a temporary shelter for Blockley and myself, and there I spent my first night on the bank of that great river that for years it had been my chief ambition to behold.
The landing-place was close to the rapids of which I have spoken, and about four miles above the mouth of the Chobe. Before us in the stream were numbers of small islands, some wooded and others overgrown with weeds. Darters were perching on the overhanging branches, and cormorants had taken up their quarters on the ledges of the dark brown rocks. Carefully avoiding the deeper places frequented by crocodiles, the birds kept on diving for fish and returning to their old positions, where they spread out their wings to dry. We shot several of them, but only managed to secure two, as the rest, like a bald buzzard (Haliaëtus vocifer) that I also killed, were carried down the stream and devoured by crocodiles. Hippopotamuses could be heard every ten minutes throughout the night, but the large fire that we made deterred them from coming close to us.
Soon after sunrise I took my first boat-journey on the Zambesi. I found myself in a fragile canoe made of a hollowed tree-stem scarcely eighteen inches wide, its sides being scarcely three inches above the surface of the deep blue stream, that made a dark belt around the diversified verdure of the islets.
