illegally importing arms. Nor did the present writer's belief in the absolute independence of the Sus tribes save him from a four months' sentence for the same ' offence.' But what befell, and how some of us traversed a country hardly seen, much less trodden, by any living Europeans, is told in the following pages.

[9]

CHAPTER I.

AN ILL-OMENED START.

A rainy night-Found drowned-We clear for Sakiet-el-Hamra -Crowded quarters-Novel stowage-Rough weather-A long night and slow progress.

It was a very wild night. The wind was sweeping across the low dreary marshes of the Schelde in sudden gusts which swayed the yacht at her moorings, and heavy showers of rain from the dark driving clouds seemed almost to quench the feeble lights that flickered in the streets by the well-nigh deserted quayside.

I had expected a friend to dinner, but we had finished our meal without a sign of him, or any message to excuse his absence. It was easy to imagine that a comfortable chair at home had more attractions than a drive to the Quai du Sud through the pitiless rain, and a search along the riverside crowded with bales and packing-cases, and cumbered with railway lines to stumble over and ship's cables to trip up the unwary; and I was making excuses for my friend on this score over my coffee and cognac, when a piercing scream rang out above the whistling of the wind and the creaking of cordage. Simultaneously we looked at one another, and Beyerle and I donned our mackintoshes and went out to investigate.

A little knot of people was gathering on the quayside, and, scrambling over the deck of the Bendearg and up its ladder to the shore, we were just in time to see a limp, dripping, and bedraggled form brought from the river and laid upon a pallet of packing-cases. A hasty examination showed the bundle to be a woman -all that was left of her-of about sixty years of age. Poor creature! She had come down to the docks to pay a visit to someone on board the big sailing ship, on which she herself had once been stewardess, or something of the sort, and, her foot catching in a rope, she had fallen headlong into the swollen river. Some man who heard her shout had just time to run down the ladder, grasp her by her clothing as she floated by in the rushing tide, and haul her to land. No effort was made to restore her to consciousness, and the doctor, who was quickly on the spot, pronounced life extinct. She had died from the shock. I was unpleasantly struck with the apparent callousness of the men who had lent a hand to rescue her from the river's greedy clutches; but I found out afterwards that a reward is paid by the authorities to anyone recovering a dead body from the river. For saving a life there is no fee.

To me a dead body is never beautiful, but there was something so horrible in the sight of this ill-clad, dripping corpse that the memory of it haunted me for days, and I could not shake off the idea that this was an ill omen for the success of our voyage.

'Come along,' said Beyerle, 'let's go and have a brandy and soda.'

And we turned and went.

The next day, December 14, the last box of ammunition was put on board and lashed down on

deck, and the last package of stores stowed away in the already crowded-up saloon. In the sleepingberths amidships, rifles, taken out of their packingcases, were stacked from floor to ceiling, 4,300 in all. The cartridges, of which we took half a million, were stowed aft to trim the vessel. Altogether there was little prospect of that comfort which is usually associated with a yachting trip.

Steam was up, and while Beyerle and I were paying a visit of inspection to our neighbour the Bendearg, under the guidance of her chief mate, three long shrill blasts from the yacht warned us that she was impatient to be off. 'Good-bye,' said the mate, a good-looking hearty young Scotchman; 'I wouldna mind going with ye, but ye're about a foot and a haf too deep in the watter all the same;' and a hasty glance showed that the cabin ports were almost entirely under water.

The Customs officer was just getting his last items of information, and drinking his final glass of Scotch whisky, as we entered the little saloon on deck.

'And where are you bound to?' he asked the Major in French.

'Sakiet-el-Hamra, viâ the Canaries,' was the Major's bland reply, in the tones of one saying. 'New York, calling at Southampton.'

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Ah oui, je le connais bien,' said this intelligent officer as he made an entry in his note-book; and it was impossible not to admire the graceful ease and readiness with which the man lied. With a formal salute and a 'Bon voyage' he bowed himself out, and five minutes later the captain had rung the telegraph 'half-speed ahead,' and the Tourmaline was gliding down the river past the maze of shipping and the town, on the top of a strong ebb-tide.

The crew were all wanted to put things shipshape, trim the cargo, and clear the decks of ropes and other lumber, so I took the wheel until we had got clear of the city, and entered the first of those long marsh-girt reaches which wind in snake-like curves between Antwerp and the sea, when I relinquished my post to the pilot. The rain came on again during the afternoon, and when the lights of Flushing hove in sight, between five and six o'clock, a stiff breeze was blowing, which augured anything but well for our run down Channel.

Orders were given to drop anchor, as the cargo and stores in the lower saloon were not in such a state as

to justify our putting to sea. Rolls of calico were stacked up in piles, reaching from floor to ceiling. Tins of biscuits, bags of rice and coffee, were heaped up indiscriminately, and through all this heterogeneous mass of cargo a gangway had to be left clear to admit of passage to the chain locker and forward cabin, where Mr. Watling had taken up his quarters.

Watson, the chief steward, therefore set to work to shore up the calico, and so arrange it that there was room on top to lay a mattress, on which to sleep at night. They were rough-and-ready sleeping-quarters, and a bang on the head was likely to half stun him if, on getting up in the morning, he failed to recollect that the ceiling was only two feet above him. On the other hand, there was the consolation that he ran small risk of being rolled out of his bunk in heavy weather.

The Major occupied the owner's cabin,' a comfortable little den abaft the engine-room, to get to which he had to pick his way down a steep flight of narrow stairs, and climb over a barricade of ammunition-boxes