256 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



of each other, squeezed them like sardines, at last got 

 them all triumphantly aboard! We were much re- 

 lieved at this — as were the men — for we did not want 

 to leave them. There was no more room; but we still 

 floated. Cuninghame and I occupied a flat, hard little 

 deck right in the stern together with the crew and a 

 jumble of ropes. 



We cast off from the pier and poled ourselves out 

 until we floated free. Then, and not until then, we 

 raised the sail. Reason immediately apparent. The 

 dhow refused positively to pay off, but nosed her way 

 back into the wind every time she was coaxed out of it. 

 Yells, confusion, excitement, production of two long 

 poles to the end of which were fastened round pieces of 

 wood — oars, save the mark! Thrice we vainly teased 

 our way free, and thrice we came up into the wind. 

 Then we hung on a hair of indecision, hesitated, paid 

 off, and were away before the breeze. Fortunately 

 the wind held fresh and fair all day. If it had not, 

 heaven alone knows where we should have arrived or 

 when. 



The shores of Victoria Nyanza are deeply indented. 

 In fact, the coastline is practically a series of long 

 peninsulas and deep bays between them. Groups of 

 islands of all sizes are numerous. Wherever the coast 

 is not beaten by the seas it is fringed with a band of 

 papyrus, sometimes thirty feet from root to blossom. 

 The coast proper is rather barren and brown looking, 



