AND THE RUDOLF BASIX 



37 



The sceneiv round Kisiiniu and Port Florence is not particularlv 

 prepossessing. Indeed, tlic touvi>t"s tii>t introduction to the A'ictoria 

 Nvanza at this p'oint will occasion hini much disappointment. All he 

 will see before him is Kavirondo IJay or Gulf, that lengtli}' northern 

 prolongation of the Victoria Nyanza. This is a huge backwater of the 

 lake, where the water stagnates and entirely loses the blue limpidity 

 ordinarily characteristic of the Victoria Nyanza. It has a dirty green or 

 even a dirty brown look. Seen from a di>tance when ruffled bv the wind, 

 it so closely resembles a red ploughed field that it is difficult to believe 

 you are looking on a sheet of water. The ground is either a rank marsh 

 (where the onlv beautiful feature are the numerous sacred ibises of 



31. ox KAVIRONDO ISAV, VKTOHIA NYANZA 



inky black and snowy white) or harsh rock. There are very few trees, 

 and the principal object in all these landscapes is the candelabra euphorbia. 

 If the reader (who will fre(juently see this form of vegetation appearing 

 and reappearing in my photographs) wishes to realise what this strange 

 tree looks like, let him imagine a gigantic cabbage or cauliflower which 

 has run to stalk, only to countless stalks, many-jointed, and of gouty 

 thickness. They curve upwards from the head of the trunk something 

 like the arms of a candelabra. The stem which supports this heavy mass 

 of succulent vegetation is short, irregular in its swollen girth, and generally 

 of a scaly grev. The huge ])lant is usually loosely and insufficiently 

 rooted in the soil, for it frequently topples over with its own weight in a 



