46 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPOET. 



to-day, by good fortune, the usually troublesome 

 people have attended more to their harvest-making, 

 and left me to the enjoyment of the scenery. My 

 trusty Blissett made a flonikan pay the penalty of 

 death for his temerity in attempting a flight across 

 the track. The day's journey lasted thirteen miles, 

 and brought us into a village called Isamiro. 



^Xext day the caravan, after quitting Isamiro, began 

 winding up a long but gradually inclined hill which, 

 as it bears no native name, I will call Somerset 

 until it reached its summit, when the vast expanse of 

 the pale-blue waters of the N'yanza burst suddenly 

 upon my gaze. It was early morning. The distant 

 sea-line of the north horizon was defined in the calm 

 atmosphere between the north and west points of the 

 compass ; but even this did not afford me any idea of 

 the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago of islands, 

 each consisting of a single hill, rising to a height of 

 200 or 300 feet above the water, intersected the line 

 of vision to the left ; while on the right the western 

 horn of the Ukerewe Island cut off any further view 

 of its distant waters to the eastward of north. A 

 sheet of water an elbow of the sea, however, at the 

 base of the low range on which I stood extended far 

 away to the eastward, to where, in the dim distance, 

 a hummock -like elevation of the mainland marked 

 what I understood to be the south and east angle of 

 the lake. The large and important islands of Ukerewe 

 and Mzita, distant about twenty or thirty miles, formed 



