236 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



harboured him. When the chief knew what had 

 befaUen his daughter, he would not allow her to 

 remain with the people she had disgraced, and she 

 and Bulu were together banished to the islands of 

 Lake Chad. From them is sprung the Buduma 

 race. 



Within one and a half hours of Saiorum we came 

 to thick rushes, but our Buduma boatmen found a 

 track through them, the existence of which no 

 stranger could have guessed. At times we passed 

 into an open space set in a framework of rushes ; 

 and once Mr Talbot, who was sitting in the stern 

 route-sketching, called out that he had seen a flying- 

 fish, and a few moments later I saw another. 



The scene was a patchwork of colour : little yellow 

 flowers — supported on their own bladders, together 

 with the water -violet, made a delicate background 

 for the huDfe crenelated leaf and fine blossom of some 

 giant water-lily. These carpeted the way, standing 

 high out of the water, and scenting the air with 

 their delicious perfume. There were five or six 

 different varieties, some white, with shell -like pink 

 tips, and others from pale - blue to a deep, almost 

 violet, shade. Our polers dragged them out of the 

 water, not to indulge their aesthetic senses, but to 

 gratify their baser appetites, for they munched up 

 both the seed-capsules and the long, snake-like stalks 

 — a practice they repeated with the rushes, which 

 again closed thick upon us. 



Land was near, and through the gloaming we saw 

 the forms of men, and huge horned cattle. We drew 

 closer to them, passing a fleet of papyrus canoes — some 

 little more than 8 feet long, designed for speed and 



