47 6 AFRICAN FISHING. 



We say this without the slightest desire to act the 

 part of an adverse critic, or to minimize in any way 

 the many difficulties which surrounded the officers in 

 charge upon this disastrous occasion. 



But to be able to utilize the resources of such a 

 river, it was of course necessary for them to have pos- 

 sessed adequate supplies of nets, and other fishing 

 tackle, the extra carriage and expense of which would 

 however have been comparatively trivial. 



Large fish no doubt could have been taken in con- 

 siderable quantities in suitable nets, while a small meshed 

 net would have supplied small fish for baits, and the 

 resources of the surrounding bush would have supplied 

 many other kinds of bait for fishing lines. Fishing 

 nets form a very useful part of a traveller's outfit, as 

 all experience shows. 



The records of African fishing are of course for so 

 far, however, singularly meagre, but it is known that 

 extensive and successful fisheries are carried on by the 

 natives resident on the borders of the Central African 

 Lakes, and that throughout Central Africa fish is a large 

 and universal article of trade. Whenever travellers make 

 any allusion in their books to the subject of fish and 

 fishing, it is always to mention the fact that the African 

 rivers and streams abound with fish. Emin Pasha 

 himself says so in several places in his book. Of the 

 Yalo river for instance he states, " the number of fish 

 it contains is quite marvellous." * 



Let us however take the case of one of the very last 

 localities where a fisherman would probably think of 



* Emin Pasha in Central Africa, a collection of his letters and 

 journals, by Professor Schweinfurth and others, translated from the 

 German by R. W. Felkin, 1888, p. 326 and 396. 



