376 UGANDA [ch. xiii 



Then for two or three days we passed over low hills 

 and through swampy valleys, the whole landscape 

 covered by a sea of elephant-grass, the close-growing, 

 coarse blades more than twice the height of a man on 

 horseback. Here and there it was dotted with groves 

 of strange trees ; in these groves monkeys of various 

 kinds — some black, some red -tailed, some auburn — 

 chattered as they raced away among the branches ; 

 there were brilliant rollers and bee-eaters ; little green 

 and yellow parrots, and grey parrots with red tails ; 

 and many-coloured butterflies. Once or twice we saw 

 the handsome, fierce, short-tailed eagle, the bateleur 

 eagle, and scared one from a reedbuck fawn it had 

 killed. Among the common birds there were black 

 drongos and musical bush shrikes ; small black magpies 

 with brown tails ; white-headed kites and slate-coloured 

 sparrow-hawks ; palm swifts ; big hornbills ; blue and 

 mottled kingfishers, which never went near the water, 

 and had their upper mandibles red and their under ones 

 black ; barbets, with swollen, saw-toothed bills, their 

 plumage iridescent purple above and red below ; bulbuls, 

 also dark purple above and red below, which whistled 

 and bubbled incessantly as they hopped among the 

 thick bushes, behaving much like our own yellow- 

 breasted chats ; and a multitude of other birds, beautiful 

 or fantastic. There were striped squirrels too, reminding 

 us of the big Rocky INIountain chipmunk or Say's chip- 

 munk, but with smaller ears and a longer tail. 



Christmas Day we passed on the march. There is 

 not much use in trying to celebrate Christmas unless 

 there are small folks to hang up their stockings on 

 Christmas Eve, to rush gleefully in at dawn next morn- 

 ing to open the stockings, and after breakfast to wait in 

 hopping expectancy until their elders throw open the 



