A native minstrel serenaded us in the evening, playing several quaint tunes on a species of one stringed fiddle, accompanied by wild, but not unmusical songs.  He told the Makololo that he intended to play all night to induce us to give him a present.  The nights being cold, the thermometer falling to 47 degrees, with occasional fogs, he was asked if he was not afraid of perishing from cold; but, with the genuine spirit of an Italian organ-grinder, he replied, “Oh, no; I shall spend the night with my white comrades in the big canoe; I have often heard of the white men, but have never seen them till now, and I must sing and play well to them.”  A small piece of cloth, however, bought him off, and he moved away in good humour.  The water of the river was 70 degrees at sunrise, which was 23 degrees warmer than the air at the same time, and this caused fogs, which rose like steam off the river.  When this is the case cold bathing in the mornings at this time of the year is improper, for, instead of a glow on coming out, one is apt to get a chill; the air being so much colder than the water.

A range of hills, commencing opposite Senna, comes to within two or three miles of Mboma village, and then runs in a north-westerly direction; the principal hill is named Malawe; a number of villages stand on its tree-covered sides, and coal is found cropping out in the rocks.  The country improves as we ascend, the rich valley becoming less swampy, and adorned with a number of trees.

Both banks are dotted with hippopotamus traps, over every track which these animals have made in going up out of the water to graze.  The hippopotamus feeds on grass alone, and, where there is any danger, only at night.  Its enormous lips act like a mowing-machine, and form a path of short-cropped grass as it feeds.  We never saw it eat aquatic plants or reeds.  The tusks seem weapons of both offence and defence.  The hippopotamus trap consists of a beam five or six feet long, armed with a spear-head or hard-wood spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord, which, coming down to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beast treads on it.  Being wary brutes, they are still very numerous.  One got frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the bank.  In its eager hurry to escape it rushed on shore, and ran directly under a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the poisoned spear-head a foot deep into its flesh.  In its agony it plunged back into the river, to die in a few hours, and afterwards furnished a feast for the natives.  The poison on the spear-head does not affect the meat, except the part around the wound, and that is thrown away.  In some places the descending beam is weighted with heavy stones, but here the hard heavy wood is sufficient.