266 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



needed rousing), I dressed and got some breakfast while the 

 animals were being packed and the tent, etc., struck and tied up. 

 It took an hour and a half to pack the asses, and by 5.30 it 

 was light enough to march ; for we could not start earlier in 

 an unknown and pathless country. By noon we were generally 

 camped at some suitable spot where a few trees or bushes 

 furnished firewood ; our trusty friend the lake supplying water 

 and securing us from all anxiety on the score of thirst — that 

 most-to-be-dreaded of all calamities in African travel. 



In spite of the arid, barren nature of the country, there 

 was a charm about the lake shore, and I enjoyed travelling 

 along it, and always found something to interest me. There 

 were the birds, in astonishing numbers and great variety, — 

 pelicans sitting sleepily on the water and shoals, secure from 

 crocodiles (for I watched one swim through a flock), or flying 

 in skeins to and fro ; flocks of gulls and terns ; storks, herons 

 of various kinds, ibises, egrets and many other small waders, 

 with countless cormorants in two sizes ; besides numerous 

 Egyptian geese, where damp lawns bordering the shore afford 

 them grazing, but duck and teal singularly scarce. Game, too, 

 was a little more plentiful, and I began to notice zebra spoor 

 and occasionally an old rhino " scrape " again. We passed 

 more islets with little settlements of El Molo in the many 

 bays formed by this part of Bassu, until we rounded the bight 

 of the lake where the shore suddenly trends for a spell, towards 

 the west. Here the coast is exposed to the swell raised by 

 the prevailing southerly and south-easterly winds, and the con- 

 ditions are less favourable to both natives and birds. As we 

 travelled along this part I noticed old beaches of various 

 heights. Sometimes we would march along one far above the 

 present level of the water, like a well-kept, wide, gravel carriage 

 drive, at another part one ran along like a barrier reef, separated 

 from the present shore by a lagoon. On these beaches the 

 surf sometimes roared like the sea. After cutting across the 

 promontory terminating this reach, whose extreme cape is 



