THE ALBERT NYANZA 



up and go through a series of drills ; with a stick he would 

 endeavour to present arms, carry at the slope, trail, etc. 

 I gave some of them a broken record, for which they had 

 a free fight, afterwards examining it as a monkey does 

 on first seeing himself in a mirror. They appealed to 

 me to explain it to them, and I put myself to no little 

 trouble in trying to do so as lucidly as my knowledge of 

 Swahili would allow. I spent some ten minutes haran- 

 guing the crowd, during which time the cook forgot to 

 attend to the meat in the pan over the fire, with the 

 result that our dinner was burnt. When I had finished 

 they all looked at, and nudged each other for some 

 seconds, and finally burst into roars of laughter. All 

 sorts of oh ! oh ! ah ! ah ! a — h — h — h — h ! murmurs 

 were heard. Of course the trumpet of the gramophone 

 had to be examined and handled very circumspectly. The 

 clockwork motor with the tiny governors whirling round 

 was more than some could stand. Many rubbed their 

 eyes as though they were in a dream, others went into 

 hysterical fits of laughter. The boy on whose head the 

 gramophone used to travel, carried the machine very 

 gingerly ; the rest of the party always regarded him as 

 being in touch with the devil ! I don't know whether 

 he thought that he could imitate the machine, but 

 certain it is that he became the noisiest member of the 

 safari. 



The heat while we waited at Butiaba was intolerable, 

 even at night 94-97 degrees was nothing extraordinary, 

 so we were told. About 3 a.m., however, it got cooler, 

 but after 9 a.m., it became terrific again. 



I made several attempts to catch some of the fish 

 that abound in the lake, but my line was evidently not 

 adapted for that clear water, for I did not get a single 

 bite. The natives generally use a spear, and I have 

 seen fish landed fully seven feet long. These fish are 

 called by the natives " Bukka " or " Buggera." They 



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