MUSIC ON KIVU 203 



weather) is curiously fickle too. In three weeks 

 we had every variety between the sultriness of 

 tropical African heat and the bright chill that might 

 have been a day from an English April. 



The native dug-out canoes are not so long as 

 those on the Congo, but of the same pattern, and 

 many of them are built with thwarts, upon which 

 the paddlers sit. There are few more delightful 

 ways of travelling than to sit in the bow of the 

 canoe (there are excellent reasons for sitting in 

 front of the Kivu paddlers) and to feel the regular 

 rise and fall of the craft, as it is urged powerfully 

 forwards. The paddlers sing almost continually, 

 while they work, a number of curious and pleasing 

 songs. The steersman, who sits in the stern, 

 generally fills the office of choragus ; he sings a 

 long recitative in a high-pitched nasal falsetto, and 

 then the others join in, and sing in unison a very 

 melodious chorus. The general scheme of most 

 of their song's is somewhat that of a scale, in which 

 they descend by semi-tones and quarter-tones and 

 many complicated turns, until they arrive at a pitch 

 which the profoundest European basso would find 

 difficult to reach. They sing with marked expres- 

 sion and admirably together, and many of them 

 have voices of extraordinary richness. 



Until we had gone about half-way down Kivu 

 we followed the west shore, and then we crossed 

 over to the Island of Kwijwe, which is separated 

 from the mainland by a channel four or five miles 



