I concluded that these were attendants set there to guide and welcome us, for after we had passed, they vanished into the chambers.
But this was not all.

Set across the little bay of water just above the canoe that floated there was a wooden platform, eight feet or so square, on either side of which stood an enormous elephant's tusk, bigger indeed than any I have seen in all my experience, which tusks seemed to be black with age.

Between the tusks, squatted upon rugs of some kind of rich fur, was what from its shape and attitude I at first took to be a huge toad.

In truth, it had all the appearance of a very bloated toad.
There was the rough corrugated skin, there the prominent backbone (for its back was towards us), and there were the thin, splayed-out legs.
We stared at this strange object for quite a long while, unable to make it out in that uncertain light, for so long indeed, that I grew nervous and was about to ask the Kalubi what it might be.

As my lips opened, however, it stirred, and with a slow, groping, circular movement turned itself towards us very slowly.