390 RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO [ch. xiv 



was no forest ; but scattered over the plains were trees, 

 generally thorns, but other kinds also, among them 

 palms and euphorbias. 



The following morning, forty-eight hours after leaving 

 Butiaba, on Lake Albert Nyanza, we disembarked from 

 the little flotilla which had carried us — a crazy little 

 steam-launch, two sail-boats, and two big row-boats. 

 We made our camp close to the river's edge, on the 

 l^ado side, in a thhi grove of scattered thorn-trees. 

 The grass grew rank and tall all about us. Our tents 

 were pitched, and the grass huts of the porters built, on 

 a kind of promontory, the main stream running past 

 one side, while on the other was a bay. The nights 

 were hot, and the days burning ; the mosquitoes came 

 with darkness, sometimes necessitating our putting on 

 head-nets and gloves in the evenings, and they would 

 have made sleep impossible if we had not had mosquito 

 biers. Nevertheless it was a very pleasant camp, and 

 we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a wild, lonely 

 country, and we saw no human beings except an 

 occasional party of naked savages armed with bows 

 and poisoned arrows. Game was plentiful, and a 

 himter always enjoys a permanent camp in a good 

 game country ; for while the expedition is marchhig, 

 his movements must largely be regulated by those of 

 the safari, whereas at a permanent camp he is more 

 independent. 



There was an abundance of animal life, big and little, 

 about our camp. In the reed sand among the water- 

 lilies of the bay there were crocodiles, monitor lizards 

 six feet long, and many water birds — herons, flocks of 

 beautiful white egrets, clamorous spur-winged plover, 

 sacred ibis, noisy purple ibis, saddle-billed storks, and 

 lily- trotters, which ran lightly over the lily-pads. There 



