loo In the Heart of Africa 



mined until a careful comparison has been made. Having very 

 carefully attended to the dressing of the skin, we celebrated the 

 event by cracking a bottle of Moselle. It was Mildbraed's first 

 successful hunting exploit in Africa, but was followed by many 

 others, by which our collection was enriched with many a fine 

 specimen. 



Next morning we left Wau, the idyllic, in most beautiful 

 weather, and sailed for the west coast of Kwidschwi. The 

 departure was, of course, accompanied by the usual noise and 

 bustle. We were obliged to distribute our reserve stores of pro- 

 visions, which had been sent after us on a primitive dhow from 

 Kissenji to Wau, amongst the eight dug-outs, and the rowers 

 behaved as if they feared the additional loads would imperil 

 their boats' safety. In reality that only meant laziness, for there 

 was positively no danger to be feared with the mirror-like smooth- 

 ness of the lake and the proximity of the banks, which lay right 

 alongside our course. A few thrusts in the ribs from the Askari 

 settled matters much more expeditiously than our despairing 

 attempts to convince the men by words, and thus we at length 

 got into the boats. I sat lost in thought in a deck chair in the 

 bows of my boat, turning the pages of Kandt's " Caput Nili," 

 and revelling in his descriptions, as well as in the reality — the 

 charming isles, the rugged slopes of the western shore, and in 

 many other things around me. The voyage was interrupted 

 several times by a brief chase — of course, an unsuccessful one — 

 after an otter. We had more luck with the great white herons. 

 These are the most attractive figures among the scanty water- 

 fowl of Lake Kiwu, and as they are not hunted by the natives, 

 they are not so very timid. If you see one of these striking 

 birds proudly strutting along the banks, you may safely count 

 it as spoil. With this exception we saw few other water- fowl 

 during our several trips on the lake ; one or two seamews and 

 cormorants, grey herons, fox-geese and ducks, but all of them 

 singly. This is a striking phenomenon when compared with the 

 profusion of birds on other African lakes. It accords entirely 

 with the generally accepted fact of Lalce Kiwu's poverty in 



