48 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



point I reached upon the Lake. It would not have been 

 possible to get farther owing to the lack of water. Lieutenant 

 Freydenberg, a French officer, who has since been exploring 

 in the same region, confirms this view. 



Though we sent friendly shouts after the retreating 

 Budumas, we could not induce them to return. This was 

 most annoying for we needed a pilot badly. However, on 

 returning to the island, we were lucky to come accidentally 

 upon a canoe, and not far off we discovered its occupants 

 lying " doggo " in the reeds. They were a decrepit old man, 

 his two sons, and a woman with a baby at breast. Their 

 attitudes and faces betrayed the most abject fear and I fancy 

 they thought that their last day had come. But I pointed 

 to the flag that was flying at the stern of one of the boats, 

 making them understand by signs that there was nothing to 

 fear. Presently they crawled out of the reeds, and it was not 

 long before they were squatting round me on the island, gazing 

 up with wondering looks. Round about were spread the nets 

 and their catch of fish. They had made some good hauls, 

 and there was one big fish, over 5 ft. in length, of which I took 

 a photograph. Before leaving, I pressed the two boys into 

 my service as guides, but they protested that they knew 

 nothing of the Lake " over there " — pointing with their 

 fingers to the eastwards. Whereupon my " boys " crying 

 out '' Shegi, shegi'' ("Rascals, rascals"), bustled them 

 briskly into the boats. It is really amusing to watch the 

 expressions of pious horror that one's " boys " put on when 

 a lie that will be of no benefit to themselves is told to their 

 white master, and they seem for the time being entirely 

 unconscious of their own proficiency in the art of inexacti- 



