THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 9 



man who is willing to go light and work. Further- 

 more, I must repeat, this is the last new game field of 

 real extent. All the rest of the continent is well 

 enough known. Therefore we have the real pleasure 

 not only in opening a new and rich country to the 

 knowledge of sportsmen, but the added satisfaction of 

 knowing that we are the last who will ever behold such 

 a country for the first time. 



When we started we had no very high anticipations. 

 There is plenty of waste desert land in Africa. The 

 country between Natron and Kilimanjaro — to the 

 east — is arid and unproductive of much of anything but 

 thornbush; there was no real reason why the corre- 

 sponding country between Natron and Victoria Nyanza 

 — to the west — should be any different. Only that 

 the former was useless was a well-known fact; while of 

 the latter the uselessness was only supposition. Cun- 

 inghame and I resolved to take a chance. We might 

 find nothing, absolutely nothing, for our pains; but even 

 that would be knowledge. 



As far as we could see, our difficulties could be 

 divided into several classes. In the first place, we 

 must get permission to cross the boundary between the 

 English and German protectorates at a point where 

 there is no custom house. This was a real difficulty, as 

 those who know the usual immutability of German 

 officialdom will realize. It took us a year to get this 

 permission; and in the process many personages, in- 



