40 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER Africa — we had the honour of listening to a sonnet of which they were the joint authors. Here it is : NIGHT ON THE RiyER.

Slow through the reaches of the oily stream, Unshapely, huge, and heap'd with cumbrous freight, The steamer drags along its ponderous weight, And panting, breathes a cloud of eddying steam ; Upon the deck the wearied negroes dream.

In sleep's fine thraldom — humble, candid, great, — While overhead the moon in regal state Trails robes of gauze enmesh'd with astral gleam. The misty night exhales a poisonous balm From vague-spread margins, where the shadows lie, Of softly-tufted bush and tropic palm ; Then from the silence, echoless, on high Mounts through the torpor of the deadly calm, To ethereal plains the siren's piercing cry.

■ iri'.,:-.V:- ., Jma HBi--"'>S UMIH jfP ; ON THK SENEGAL