i?2 A SAIL UPON THE ALBERT LAKE. 



hut I might choose, but I could find none that would suit 

 me ; so, early on the following morning, I begged Kagoro to 

 have a hut and an awning constructed for me. This he at 

 once promised to get done, although, owing to the scarcity 

 of materials, it was a difficult task to accomplish. Late in 

 the evening I received a sheep and twelve head of poultry as 

 a present, together with the promise of more on the morrow 

 — of course a promise ad calendas Grcecas. One must, how- 

 ever, in such cases, rest content with the goodwill and the 

 smooth words. We could not, indeed, expect the natives, 

 who have themselves to buy all their necessaries of life from 

 beyond the hills, to be particularly generous to strangers. 

 Kibiro, the name of the Central African trading station before 

 which our steamer lay, produces nothing but salt, and with 

 this its inhabitants have to purchase even their firewood. 



Along the lake shore runs a tolerably broad strip of sand, 

 sometimes coarse, sometimes fine, spread over sharp-edged 

 debris of stone, and in some places so thickly strewn with the 

 yellowish shells of a species of small snail as to have a per- 

 fectly white appearance. These are the undeveloped outer 

 coverings of two or three forms of which I had already 

 gathered specimens. The bay is entirely surrounded by this 

 girdle of sand ; beyond it comes a belt of undergrowth on 

 dunes, where grows a species of Aristida, that takes the 

 place of bent grass (Elymus), and pricks in a most unpleasant 

 manner. On the farther slopes of these dunes we crossed 

 places in which the soil was swept quite bare ; heaps of a 

 scoured and finely pulverised kind of earth of a greyish- 

 yellow colour, patches in which the soil had been recently 

 moistened, preparatory to being scratched up (for salt), little 

 pools full of yellowish water, and walls of mud, along the 

 foot of which stood rows of clay vessels ranged on stones 

 placed at regular intervals, proved that the people here en- 

 gage in some special extraction. 



The steadings or hamlets of the inhabitants are scattered all 

 along the low foot-hills, being separated from one another by 

 narrow and very dirty passages; on the whole, they suggest 

 the idea of a tolerably dense population. Each hamlet is 

 surrounded by a reed hedge, often in a very defective con- 



