228 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



ments 9 ft. in diameter. It is a weird sight to see a small 

 canoe drifting down the river to some new fishing-ground 

 and carrying one of these huge baskets silhouetted against the 

 evening light, with the squatting figure of a man in the stern 

 stroking the water ever so lightly with his paddle for fear of 

 capsizing the tiny, heavy-laden craft. 



Another means for catching fish that the Banz'ri employ 

 are barricades of- cane, which they set across the mouths of 

 the streams and backwaters. 



During our journey up the Ubangui we devoted ourselves 

 to making natural history collections : I came off rather 

 better than Gosling, for birds and small mammals did not 

 take up much room, but the heads and skins of large game 

 always presented a difficult problem in the transport arrange- 

 ments, for there was now no means of sending the specimens 

 back to the coast. Gosling, how^ever, did not relax his 

 efforts, so leaving me at a small Banziri village thirty-five 

 miles above the junction of the River Kwango, where I 

 wished to make collections, he continued the journey a day 

 farther up the river to the big island of Luma, where he 

 hoped to find the rare Bongo antelope. 



The village I stayed at is on the right bank, and lies not 

 far from a chain of down-like hills 150 ft. in height, the 

 ravines and hollows of w^hich are filled with trees and thickets 

 — a nature of country that was new to me, so I spent several 

 days in its exploration, setting out morning and evening on 

 long rambles with Mama Bornu, one of our Arab boatmen 

 who had become my gun-boy since we left Fort Archambault. 



Now and then in the long grass, through which I had to 

 push my way to reach the hills, I came upon clearings, not 



