i6o TO LAKE ALBERT EDWARD 



in calculating the necessary amount of cloth and 

 beads to be taken as porters' wages, and payment 

 for food in the Congo. Starting from a known 

 number of loads of stores and equipment, you 

 reckon the amount of beads and cloth which will be 

 required to pay for its transport. The beads and 

 cloth, being heavy, require a certain number of 

 porters to carry them ; the porters require more 

 beads and cloth, which necessitates the hiring of 

 more porters, and so, on the principle of ' big fleas 

 and lesser fleas,' ad infinitum. 



The nicely calculated less or more resolved itself 

 at length into a small caravan of forty porters, and 

 we started from Entebbe on our long homeward way 

 in the middle of September. Travelling south-west 

 through the province of Buddu, we were within 

 sight of the Victoria Nyanza for several days, and 

 crossed several streams flowing into the lake. Near 

 the Katonga River, which is really a very consider- 

 able river, but so much overgrown with papyrus 

 that it was hardly to be recognized as a stream, we 

 were for almost the only time during all our wander- 

 ings seriously worried by mosquitoes ; not content 

 with preying upon us at night, they followed and fed 

 upon us in broad daylight — a thing, fortunately, very 

 rare with mosquitoes. 



The province of Buddu is famous for its bark 

 cloth, which is made from the bark of a species 

 of fig-tree. In some places the sound of hammering 

 may be heard coming from almost every house in 



