The passage of this part of the river occupied us until noon, and was rather trying to the nerves of all hands, for not only were we constantly exposed to attack by the slavers, but there were the natives also to be reckoned with; and these, as we all knew, had a most objectionable habit of using poisoned arrows, the slightest wound from which was invariably followed by death after some eight to twelve hours of dreadful suffering.  Shortly after noon we emerged from these natural entanglements into a long reach of the river where the stream expanded to a width of some three and a half miles, with a narrow deep-water channel running about midway between the banks.  Here we were quite free from any possibility of ambush of any kind; and with a sigh of intense relief the captain gave the word to pipe to dinner.