288 Capt. G. E. Shelley on 



selves to arrive at the river early in the morning, so as to get 

 over the bar whilst the wind was off shore and the sea calm. 

 Immediately on getting into the river I was seized with a 

 very bad attack of fever. For a week I could not move 

 without help, and, as we were surrounded on all sides by 

 swamps, and as there was little prospect of getting well in 

 such a place, and, moreover, as the captain of the dhow told me 

 we should take a fortnight or three weeks to work up to the 

 game-country, owing to the river being in flood, I decided to 

 leave the river and to run some 15 miles down the coast to a 

 place called Merereni. Here game was fairly plentiful, and 

 here I bagged ray first lioness and buffalo^ also specimens of 

 Gazella walleri, G. granti, and the Lesser Kudu. As I 

 found big-game shooting and bird-collecting almost impossible 

 to combine, I collected chiefly butterflies, beetles, and moths. 

 This I was able to do by making a man carry a net and a bag- 

 full of boxes, bottles, &c., and after a successful stalk, whilst 

 the men were trimming and cutting up the meat, I managed 

 to make a very fair collection. On my return I had the 

 misfortune to get upset in my dhow, and to lose everything 1 

 possessed, including guns and rifles, besides ten of my men. 

 Here my own boat came in very handy. To make matters 

 worse, 1 foiTud, on getting back to Lamu, that my small collec- 

 tions of birds and butterflies had been completely destroyed; 

 the former by a small beetle, the latter by a minute red ant, in 

 spite of camphor. After a few days in Lamu, I went down to 

 Zanzibar in July, 1 885, to buy a few things to keep me going 

 until I could get more rifles, guns, and other gear^ from 

 England. Sir John Kirk very kindly lent me a gun, with 

 which I made my collection of birds at Tangani, Jipi, and 

 Mashundwani. In December I was joined by my friend 

 Mr. G. H. Johnston, who brought out new guns and rifles. 



As there is but little game near Lamu, excepting from 

 April till the end of July, we went, in February 1886, for a 

 short trip up the river Wani, opposite Zanzibar. Here we shot 

 some Leichenstein^s Hartebeests and Impalas, and one Sable 

 Antelope — three species I never saw or heard of near 

 Lamu. hi May 188G, after a series of misfortunes, my friend 



