That same evening we made the land from the mast-head just before sunset, and four hours later came to an anchor off the mouth of a river, the bar of which had too little water on it to permit of the passage of the _Shark_.  Our visit to this spot was the result of certain information which the skipper had acquired a few days previously from the master of a palm-oil trader hailing from Liverpool, upon the strength of which he rather hoped to be able to take by surprise an especially notorious slaver which had long eluded our cruisers, but which was now stated, upon fairly reliable authority, to be somewhere on the coast, and was believed to have entered this particular river.