“He’s a most wonderful man, yo’ uncle!” whispered the colored man to Sam afterward.  “Fust t’ing yo’ know he’ll be growin’ corn in de com crib already shucked!” and he laughed softly to himself.

On and on over the mighty Atlantic bounded the steamer.  One day was very much like another, excepting that on Sundays there was a religious service, which nearly everybody attended.  The boys had become quite attached to Mortimer Blaze and listened eagerly to the many hunting tales he had to tell.

“I wish you were going with us,” said Tom to him.  “I like your style, as you Englishman put it.”

“Thanks, Rover, and I must say I cotton to you, as the Americans put it,” laughed the hunter.  “Well, perhaps we’ll meet in the interior, who knows?”

“Are you going up the Congo?”

“I haven’t decided yet.  I am hoping to meet some friends at Boma.  Otherwise I may go further down the coast.”

The steamer bad now struck the equator, and as it was midsummer the weather was extremely warm, and the smell of the oozing tar, pouring from every joint, was sickening.  But the weather suited Alexander Pop perfectly.

“Dis am jest right,” he said.  “I could sleep eall de time, ‘ceptin’ when de meal gong rings.”

“Blood will tell,” laughed Randolph Rover.  “When you land, Alexander, you ought to feel perfectly at home.”

“Perhaps, sah; but I dun reckon de United States am good enough for any man, sah, white or colored.”

“Right you are,” put in Dick.  “It’s the greatest country on the globe.”

It was a clear day a week later when the lookout announced land dead ahead.  It proved to be a point fifteen miles above the mouth of the Congo, and at once the course was altered to the southward, and they made the immense mouth of the river before nightfall.

It was a beautiful scene.  Far away dashed the waves against an immense golden strand, backed up by gigantic forests of tropical growth and distant mountains veiled in a bluish mist:  The river was so broad that they were scarcely aware that they were entering its mouth until the captain told them.

When night came the lights of Boma could be distinctly seen, twinkling silently over the bay of the town.  They dropped anchor among a score of other vessels; and the long ocean trip became a thing of the past.

“I’m all ready to go ashore,” said Tom.

“My, but won’t it feel good to put foot on land again!”

“Indeed it will!” cried Dick.  “The ocean is all well enough, but a fellow doesn’t want too much of it.”

“And yet I heard one of the French sailors say that he hated the land,” put in Sam.  “He hadn’t set foot on shore for three years.  When they reach port he always remains on deck duty until they leave again.”

Mortimer Blaze went ashore at once, after bidding all of the party a hearty good-by.  “Hope we meet again,” he said.  “And, anyway, good luck to you!”