98 In the Heart of Africa 



boughs of which droop down over the surface of the water. The 

 very luxuriant undergrowth renders it very difficult to penetrate 

 the forest, so that Mildbraed, after many unsuccessful attempts 

 to procure certain kinds of wood, adopted the scheme of shoot- 

 ing from the boats at the branches of trees on the banks — a 

 somewhat unique method of botanising. The rest of the island 

 has the steppe character. Right in front of our tents stood two 

 medium-sized specimens of the glorious Erythrina tomentosa, the 

 most beautiful of the African steppe trees. Its great blood-red 

 blossoms form, the favourite food of the sun-birds {nectariniidcg), 

 those diminutive, most gorgeously coloured birds which in Africa 

 take the place of humming-birds. With their long beaks, these 

 dwarfs of African ornithology search the blooms for insects. 

 There is an incessant soft flitting from tree to tree. I was able 

 in a very short time to secure five different species for our collec- 

 tion, several of each kind, and I could have increased this 

 number to any extent. Other striking denizens of the island, 

 which always gave me pleasure whenever I came across them, 

 were the grey parrots, the " kasuku " of the Wasuaheli. Their 

 sonorous call-notes resounded from morn to eve from the trees 

 behind our tents. The proudest bird, however, and the strongest, 

 the ruler of Wau, so to speak, is the screaming sea-eagle. 

 Motionless, as though stiff and frozen, sitting in his favourite 

 resting-places (tall, decayed trees on the banks), the lonely, 

 stately bird, high above the sea of foliage, with the lake gleam- 

 ing silver in the tropical sun for a background, offers a picture 

 which no painter's hand could improve upon. 



Bush-buck are the only larger kind of mammals which live on 

 Wau. There have been manifold speculations as to how they got 

 there, and as to the beginning of the island's formation. Kandt 

 and the members of the Boundary Commission came upon their 

 tracks, but could not capture the animals themselves. It was 

 thus important for us to obtain a specimen of these islanders, 

 who had without doubt been cut off from the mainland for a 

 very long period. I found a trail immediately on making my 

 first round tour of the northern point of the island. Perhaps I 



