UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 391 



English officials, and Episcopalian and Roman Catholic 

 missionaries. The king, accompanied by his prime min- 

 ister and by the English commissioner, called on me, and 

 I gave him five o'clock tea; he is a Christian, as are most 

 of his chiefs and headmen, and they are sending their 

 children to the mission schools. 



A heron, about the size of our night heron but with a 

 longer neck, and with a curiously crow-like voice, strolled 

 about among the native houses at Hoima; and the kites 

 almost brushed us with their wings as they swooped down 

 for morsels of food. The cheerful, confiding little wagtails 

 crossed the threshold of the rest-house in which we sat. 

 Black and white crows and vultures came around camp; 

 and handsome, dark hawks, with white on their wings 

 and tails, and with long, conspicuous crests, perched up- 

 right on the trees. There were many kinds of doves; one 

 pretty little fellow was but six inches long. At night the 

 jackals wailed with shrill woe among the gardens. 



From Hoima we entered a country covered with the 

 tall, rank elephant grass. It was traversed by papyrus- 

 bordered streams, and broken by patches of forest. The 

 date-palms grew tall, and among the trees were some with 

 orange-red flowers like trumpet flowers, growing in grape- 

 shaped clusters; and both the flowers and the seed-pods 

 into which they turned stood straight up in rows above the 

 leafy tops of the trees that bore them. 



The first evening, as we sat in the cool, open cane 

 rest-house, word was brought us that an elephant was close 

 at hand. We found him after ten minutes' walk; a young 

 bull, with very small tusks, not worth shooting. For three- 

 quarters of an hour we watched him, strolling about and 



