I Consider That 400 Pounds Should Cover The Entire Cost Of
A Three Months' Shooting Trip To East Africa, Including
Passage Both Ways.
The frugal sportsman will
doubtless do it on less, while the extravagant man will
probably spend very much more.
Should time be available, a trip to the Victoria Nyanza
should certainly be made. The voyage round the Lake
in one of the comfortable railway steamers takes about
eight days, but the crossing to Entebbe, the official
capital of Uganda, can be done in seventeen hours,
though it usually takes twenty-seven, as at night the
boats anchor for shelter under the lee of an island.
The steamer remains long enough in Entebbe harbour
to enable the energetic traveller to pay a flying visit in
a rickshaw to Kampala, the native capital, some twenty-one
miles off. I spent a most interesting day last year
in this way, and had a chat with the boy King of
Uganda, Daudi Chwa, at Mengo. He was then about
nine years old, and very bright and intelligent. He
made no objection to my taking his photograph, but it
unfortunately turned out a failure.
It is curious to find the Baganda (i.e., people of
Uganda) highly civilised - the majority are Christians
- surrounded as they are on all sides by nations of
practically naked savages; and it is a very interesting,
sight to watch them in the "bazaar" at Kampala, clad
in long flowing cotton garments, and busily engaged in
bartering the products of the country under the shade
of tattered umbrellas. Unfortunately the great scourge
of the district round the shores of the Lake is the
sleeping sickness, which in the past few years has
carried off thousands of the natives, and has quite
depopulated the islands, which were once densely
inhabited. The disease is communicated by the bite of
an infected fly, but happily this pest is only found in
certain well-defined regions, so that if the traveller
avoids these he is quite as safe, as regards sleeping
sickness, as if he had remained in England.
On the return journey from Entebbe, Jinja, a port on
the north side of the Victoria Nyanza, is usually called
at. This place is of great interest, as it is here that the
Lake narrows into a breadth of only a few hundred
yards, and, rushing over the Ripon Falls, forms the
long-sought-for source of the Nile. The magnificent
view of the mighty river stretching away to the north
amid enchanting scenery is most inspiring and one can
well imagine how elated Speke must have felt when
after enduring countless hardships, he at last looked
upon it and thus solved one of the great problems
the ancients.
II.
The following, is a literal translation of the
Hindustani poem referred to on p. 104: -
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE MERCIFUL, THE
COMPASSIONATE:
First must I speak to the praise and glory of God,
who is infinite and incomprehensible,
Who is without fault or error, who is the Life, though
without body or breath.
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