They had not far to go, and a few minutes after, some old trunks, hidden in between the spurges, appeared in the midst of an intense buzzing of bees.

Cousin Benedict would have preferred not to have robbed these industrious hymenopters of the “fruit of their labors,” as he expressed it.  But Dick Sand did not understand it in that way.  He smoked out the bees with some dry herbs and obtained a considerable quantity of honey.  Then leaving to the indicator the cakes of wax, which made its share of the profit, Cousin Benedict and he returned to the boat.

The honey was well received, but it was but little, and, in fact, all would have suffered cruelly from hunger, if, during the day of the 12th, the boat had not stopped near a creek where some locusts swarmed.  They covered the ground and the shrubs in myriads, two or three deep.  Now, Cousin Benedict not failing to say that the natives frequently eat these orthopters—­which was perfectly true—­they took possession of this manna.  There was enough to fill the boat ten times, and broiled over a mild fire, these edible locusts would have seemed excellent even to less famished people.  Cousin Benedict, for his part, eat a notable quantity of them, sighing, it is true—­still, he eat them.

Nevertheless, it was time for this long series of moral and physical trials to come to an end.  Although drifting on this rapid river was not so fatiguing as had been the walking through the first forests near the coast, still, the excessive heat of the day, the damp mists at night, and the incessant attacks of the mosquitoes, made this descent of the watercourse very painful.  It was time to arrive somewhere, and yet Dick Sand could see no limit to the journey.  Would it last eight days or a month?  Nothing indicated an answer.  Had the river flowed directly to the west, they would have already reached the northern coast of Angola; but the general direction had been rather to the north, and they could travel thus a long time before reaching the coast.

Dick Sand was, therefore, extremely anxious, when a sudden change of direction took place on the morning of the 14th of July.

Little Jack was in the front of the boat, and he was gazing through the thatch, when a large expanse of water appeared on the horizon.

“The sea!” he shouted.

At this word Dick Sand trembled, and came close to little Jack.

“The sea?” he replied.  “No, not yet; but at least a river which flows toward the west, and of which this stream is only a tributary.  Perhaps it is the Zaire itself.”

“May God grant that is!” replied Mrs. Weldon.

Yes; for if this were the Zaire or Congo, which Stanley was to discover a few years later, they had only to descend its course so as to reach the Portuguese settlements at its mouth.  Dick Sand hoped that it might be so, and he was inclined to believe it.

During the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of July, in the midst of a more fertile country, the boat drifted on the silvery waters of the river.  They still took the same precautions, and it was always a mass of herbs that the current seemed to carry on its surface.