from our sight like an ignis fatuus, and others danced about we knew not how.  But what was more vexatious than all, after we had got into an inlet, and toiled and tugged for a full half hour against the current, which in this little channel was uncommonly rapid, to approach a village from which we thought it flowed, both village and lights seemed to sink into the earth, the sound of the people’s voices ceased of a sudden, and when we fancied we were actually close to the spot, we strained our eyes in vain to see a single hut,—­all was gloomy, dismal, cheerless, and solitary.  It seemed the work of enchantment; every thing was as visionary as “sceptres grasped in sleep.”  We had paddled along the banks a distance of not less than thirty miles, every inch of which we had attentively examined, but not a bit of dry land could any where be discovered which was firm enough to bear our weight.  Therefore, we resigned ourselves to circumstances, and all of us having been refreshed with a little cold rice and honey, and water from the stream, we permitted the canoe to drift down with the current, for our men were too much fatigued with the labours of the day to work any longer.  But here a fresh evil arose which we were unprepared to meet.  An incredible number of hippopotami arose very near us, and came plashing, snorting, and plunging all round the canoe, and placed us in imminent danger.  Thinking to frighten them off, we fired a shot or two at them, but the noise only called up from the water and out of the fens, about as many more of their unwieldy companions, and we were more closely beset than before.  Our people, who had never in all their lives been exposed in a canoe to such huge and formidable beasts, trembled with fear and apprehension, and absolutely wept aloud; and their terror was not a little increased by the dreadful peals of thunder which rattled over their heads, and by the awful darkness which prevailed, broken at intervals by flashes of lightning, whose powerful glare was truly awful.  Our people told us, that these formidable animals frequently upset canoes in the river, when every one in them was sure to perish.  These came so close to us, that we could reach them with the butt-end of a gun.  When I fired at the first, which I must have hit, every one of them came to the surface of the water, and pursued us so fast over to the north bank, that it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable we could keep before them.  Having fired a second time, the report of my gun was followed by a loud roaring noise, and we seemed to increase our distance from them.  There were two Bornou men among our crew who were not so frightened as the rest, having seen some of these creatures before on Lake Tchad, where, they say, there are plenty of them.  However, the terrible hippopotami did us no kind of mischief whatever; they were only sporting and wallowing in the river for their own amusement, no doubt, at first when we interrupted them; but had they upset our canoe,