200 LAKE KIVU 



the vast black plain of lava sloping down from the 

 truncated cone of Tsha-nina-gongo, and, farther 

 away, the jagged line of the other volcanoes ; to 

 the east, across fifteen miles of green water, the 

 beautiful outline of the hills of Ruanda ; and stretch- 

 ing far away into the south lay Kivu, with its wooded 

 islands and rocky bays, and innumerable headlands. 

 When we came to Bobandana, we found that 

 the officer in command was absent, and the place 

 was in charge of a youthful sous-officier, aged about 

 twenty, who had five months' experience only of 

 Africa. This hopeful young person gave an in- 

 structive exhibition of the high-handed way in which 

 it is still possible to behave in these out-of-the-way 

 places. One of his boys cracked a drinking-cup 

 one evening, and was sentenced to a punishment of 

 twenty-five strokes of the ' kiboko,' to be delivered 

 on the following morning. During the night the 

 boy ran away, and the whole garrison was sent 

 out to scour the country for him, which they did 

 without success. A day or two later the chief of 

 a neighbouring village, bribed by the offer of a 

 piece of cloth (a half of the boy's monthly wage), 

 brought back the boy, whom he had no doubt 

 been concealing. The boy received his promised 

 twenty-five lashes, and so also did a wretched 

 soldier, who had been unlucky enough to search 

 unsuccessfully near the village in which the boy 

 had been hiding. Curiously enough, the boy 

 appeared to bear no ill-will for his harsh treatment, 



