The rivulet he had followed had just been emptied into the Coanza.

Only for this sudden attack, of which he had had no intimation to put him on his guard, he would have found the Coanza a mile farther on.

His companions and he would have embarked on a raft, easily constructed, and they would have had a good chance to descend the stream to the Portuguese villages, where the steamers come into port.

There, their safety would be secured.
It would not be so.
The camp, perceived by Dick Sand, was established on an elevation near the ant-hill, into which fate had thrown him, as in a trap.

At the summit of that elevation rose an enormous sycamore fig-tree, which would easily shelter five hundred men under its immense branches.
Those who have not seen those giant trees of Central Africa, can form no idea of them.