ON THE SHORES OF LAKE ALBERT 217 



us for a long while, and when we had scrambled through and 

 reached the forest, the blood-spoor was lost. 



Just then my attention was drawn to some beautiful Colobus 

 monkeys scampering off in the very topmost boughs of the 

 highest trees. I secured one specimen with my first bullet. My 

 second shot badly wounded another, which, to my regret, 

 dropped from her arms her baby, of whose existence I was un- 

 aware till then. I had to fire once more to put her also out of 

 pain. I felt very sorry to have cut short the baby-monkey's 

 life ; it was, however, interesting to see that the fringe of long 

 white hairs round the back of the adult was only represented 

 by a patch of grey woolly hair in the baby. 



My Soudanese escort begged me to let them have the 

 monkeys to eat, and they proceeded to have a grand feast. 

 Monkeys, when skinned, have an unpleasant smell, which has 

 rather prejudiced me. I have therefore not tasted this dish 

 which so many natives enjoy with relish. Swahilies, however, 

 will not eat monkeys, but with them the prejudice is, as they told 

 me themselves, that they consider it cannibalism to eat either 

 monkeys or human beings. They hold, untaught by Darwin, 

 the doctrine that monkeys are but a lower type of human 

 beings. 



The daily thunder-storm at Pongo, for a change, started at 

 early dawn, and all my men had to hold on to the poles and 

 ropes of my tent to prevent its being blown to pieces. It was a 

 short but sharp storm, and the condition of the lake afterwards 

 was such that no canoe could have lived on it. 



As soon as the waves had calmed down, we embarked in the 

 dug-outs to cross the lake from Pongo in the Lur country to 

 Rukuya in Unyoro. The Wanyoro canoe-men wore a sort of 

 eye-shade, made of reeds, to protect their eyes from the fierce 

 glare of a tropical sun shining on the mirror-like surface of this 

 treacherous lake which now lay as calm as if it were but a small 

 sheltered village pool. 



I noticed something white floating on the water some 

 distance off, and suggested it might be a dead fish, which it 

 turned out to be when we had paddled up to it. It was a big 

 fish, and my Wanyoro gloated over the feast it would provide 

 for them on shore. The prize was at once hoisted into the dug- 

 out; but when the Wanyoro probed its goodness with their 

 fingers, the squashy sound nearly made me sick. The breeze 



