210 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



of Lake Naivasha. It is a lovely sheet of water, surrounded 

 by hills and mountains, the shores broken by rocky prom- 

 ontories, and indented by papyrus-fringed bays. Next 

 morning we shifted camp four miles to a place on the farm, 

 and near the house, of the Messrs. Attenborough, settlers 

 on the shores of the lake, who treated us with the most 

 generous courtesy and hospitality 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 the 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 coun- 

 try for a new country is a poor place for the weak and in- 

 competent, whether 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 honor, 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 each reed is tall, slender, 



