CH. IX] A PAPYRUS SWAMP 207 



of the Messrs. Attenborough, settlers on the shores of 

 tlie hike, wlio treated us with the most generous 

 courtesy and hospitahty — as, indeed, did all the settlers 

 we met. They were two brothers : one had lived 

 twenty years on the Pacific Coast, mining in the 

 Sierras, and the other had just retired from tlie British 

 Navy, with the rank of Commander. They were able to 

 turn their hands to anything, and were just the men for 

 work in a new country ; for a new country is a poor 

 place for the weak and incompetent, whetlier of body 

 or mind. They had a steam-launch and a big, heavy 

 row-boat, and they most kindly and generously put 

 both at our disposal for hippo-hunting. 



At this camp I presented the porters with twenty-five 

 sheep, as a recognition of their good conduct and hard 

 work ; whereupon they improvised long chants in my 

 honour, and feasted royally. 



We spent one entire day with the row-boat in a series 

 of lagoons near camp, which marked an inlet of the lake. 

 We did not get any hippo, but it was a most interesting 

 day. A broad belt of papyrus fringed the lagoons and 

 jutted out between them. The straight green stalks, 

 with their feathery heads, rose high and close, forming 

 a mass so dense that it was practically impenetrable save 

 where the huge bulk of the hippos had made tunnels. 

 Indeed, even for the hippos it was not readily penetrable. 

 The green monotony of a papyrus swamp becomes 

 wearisome after a while ; yet it is very beautiful, for 

 I each reed is tall, slender, graceful, with its pale flowering 

 crown ; and they are typical of the tropics, and their 

 mere sight suggests a vertical sun and hot, steaming 

 swamps, where great marsh beasts feed and wallow and 

 bellow, amidst a teeming reptilian life. A fringe of 

 papyrus here and there adds mucli to the beauty of a 



