about
eleven o'clock
On this welcome patch of dry land we stopped till the following dawn , and , as before , spent the night in warfare with the mosquitoes , but without other troubles . The next day or two passed in similar fashion , and without noticeable adventures , except that we shot a specimen of a peculiarly graceful hornless buck , and saw many varieties of water-lily in full bloom , some of them blue and of exquisite beauty , though few of the flowers were perfect , owing to the prevalence of a white water-maggot with a green head that fed upon them . It was on the fifth day of our journey , when we had travelled , so far as we could reckon , about one hundred and thirty-five to a hundred and forty miles westwards from the coast , that the first event of any real importance occurred . On that morning the usual wind failed us about eleven o'clock , and after pulling a little way we were forced to halt , more or less exhausted , at what appeared to be the junction of our stream with another of a uniform width of about fifty feet . Some trees grew near at hand -- the only trees in all this country were along the banks of the river , and under these we rested , and then , the land being fairly dry just here , walked a little way along the edge of the river to prospect , and shoot a few waterfowl for food . Before we had gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the stream in the whale-boat were at an end , for not two hundred yards above where we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks , with not six inches of water over them . It was a watery _ cul de sac _ .