The first part of the watch was by no means bad--so the boys decided when they had settled down, Venning under a bush palm and Compton behind a log.

There was a pleasant freshness in the air; and as the broad river uncoiled under the mist, it disclosed fresh beauties, till the lifting veil revealed the wooded heights and the tall columns of smoke, grey against the dark of the woods and black against the indigo blue of the sky.

They marked where the hippos stood with their bulky heads to the sun, and saw the crocodiles on the sands of other islands lying motionless with distended jaws.

And then the birds came to the hunting.

Strings of dark ibis, of duck, and storks; small kingfishers all bejeweled, and greater kingfishers in black and white.