"Blood will tell," laughed Randolph Rover. "When you land,
Alexander, you ought to feel perfectly at home."
"Perhaps, sah; but I dun reckon de United States am good enough for any man, sah, white or colored."
"Right you are," put in Dick. "It's the greatest country on the globe."
It was a clear day a week later when the lookout announced land dead ahead. It proved to be a point fifteen miles above the mouth of the Congo, and at once the course was altered to the southward, and they made the immense mouth of the river before nightfall.
It was a beautiful scene. Far away dashed the waves against an immense golden strand, backed up by gigantic forests of tropical growth and distant mountains veiled in a bluish mist: The river was so broad that they were scarcely aware that they were entering its mouth until the captain told them.
When night came the lights of Boma could be distinctly seen, twinkling silently over the bay of the town. They dropped anchor among a score of other vessels; and the long ocean trip became a thing of the past.
"I'm all ready to go ashore," said Tom.
"My, but won't it feel good to put foot on land again!"
"Indeed it will!" cried Dick. "The ocean is all well enough, but a fellow doesn't want too much of it."
"And yet I heard one of the French sailors say that he hated the land," put in Sam. "He hadn't set foot on shore for three years. When they reach port he always remains on deck duty until they leave again."