98 A TOUR AMONG THE ISLANDS 



west side, whose eastern tip is formed of sand left by the 

 receding lake at the foot of a low cliff in which are caves, 

 full of bats. Further westwards the shore is low, of flat 

 rocks, with many holes kept full of water by waves ; at 

 a higher level is a sand beach now grown over by cane 

 and bushes, and used as a nesting ground by crocodiles. 

 The north-west shore is flat and marshj^ with a thick 

 fringe of rushes and bushes of " E'tungulu " and ambatch ; 

 the north-east part of the island is forested, but near the 

 water is a large patch of open grass land, with very sandy 

 soil, in which " Enswa-swa " burrow and lay their eggs. 

 The south-east shore is marshy, with lush grass much 

 frequented by hippos ; this type of shore was dubbed 

 *' Hippo Grazing Ground." 



The vegetation of Kimmi seemed to me much more 

 varied than on Tavu, which is about the same size. A 

 Chrysophyllum tree (Sapotaceae), knoAvn to the Basesse as 

 " Omugalati," which was not seen on either Bulago or 

 Tavu, an anonaceous shrub scarce on the other two isles 

 but abundant here, and a shrub with clusters of fragrant 

 white flowers, which I had not seen before, were noted. 

 Butterflies were fairly abundant, a forest Papilio, with 

 several forest Planema, were noted ; the numbers counted 

 will be found in the table (p. 125). 



The most striking feature of Kimmi was the vorac'ty 

 of Glossina, which came off in a swarm to the canoe before 

 we had touched land, and bit ferociously. It was found 

 that more than half the number caught were females, 

 which is quite exceptional ; the significance of this has 

 been discussed in the chapter on Glossina. We comforted 

 ourselves with the recollection that former experiments 

 had never shown the flies from Kimmi to be infective, 

 and put up with the inconvenience as best we could. 

 The average catch per boy-hour for this island reached 

 the high figure of 60* 9 : on one day alone it was 81 ! 



The hunger of the fly tallied with the fact that we found 



