We Were Not Expected To March Again, But Being Anxious Myself To See More Of The River, Before Starting, I Obtained Leave To Go By Boat As Far As The River Was Navigable, Sending Our Cattle By Land.

To this concession was accompanied a request for a few more gun-caps, and liberty was given us to seize any pombe which might be found coming on the river in boats, for the supplies to the palace all come in this manner.

We then took boat again, an immense canoe, and, after going a short distance, emerged from the Kafu, and found ourselves on what at first appeared a long lake, averaging from two hundred at first to one thousand yards broad before the day's work was out; but this was the Nile again, navigable in this way from Urondogani.

Both sides were fringed with the huge papyrus rush. The left one was low and swampy, whilst the right one - in which the Kidi people and Wanyoro occasionally hunt - rose from the water in a gently sloping bank, covered with trees and beautiful convolvuli, which hung in festoons. Floating islands, composed of rush, grass, and ferns, were continually in motion, working their way slowly down the stream, and proving to us that the Nile was in full flood. On one occasion we saw hippopotami, which our men said came to the surface because we had domestic fowls on board, supposing them to have an antipathy to that bird. Boats there were, which the sailors gave chase to; but, as they had no liquor, they were allowed to go their way, and the sailors, instead, set to lifting baskets and taking fish from the snares which fisherman, who live in small huts amongst the rushes, had laid for themselves.

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