UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 389 



on two banana stems, the bars being struck with a hammer, 

 as if they were keys; its tones were deep and good. Along 

 the road we did not see habitations or people; but con- 

 tinually there led away from it, twisting through the tali 

 grass and the bush jungles, native paths, the earth beaten 

 brown and hard by countless bare feet; and these, cross- 

 ing and recrossing in a network, led to plantation after 

 plantation of bananas and sweet potatoes, and clusters of 

 thatched huts. 



In the afternoon, as the sun began to get well beyond 

 the meridian, we usually sallied forth to hunt, under the 

 guidance of some native who had come in to tell us where 

 he had seen game that morning. The jungle was so thick 

 in places and the grass was everywhere so long, that with- 

 out such guidance there was little successful hunting to be 

 done in only two or three hours. We might come back 

 with a buck, or with two or three guinea-fowl, or with 

 nothing. 



There were a good many poisonous snakes; I killed a 

 big puff-adder with thirteen eggs inside it; and we also 

 killed a squat, short-tailed viper, beautifully mottled, not 

 eighteen inches long, but with a wide, flat head and a girth 

 of body out of all proportion to its length; and another 

 very poisonous and vicious snake, apparently of colubrine 

 type, long and slender. The birds were an unceasing 

 pleasure. White wagtails and yellow wagtails walked 

 familiarly about us within a few feet, wherever we halted 

 and when we were in camp. Long-tailed, crested colys, 

 with all four of their red toes pointed forward, clung to the 

 sides of the big fruits at which they picked. White-headed 

 swallows caught flies and gnats by our heads. There were 



