DESCRIPTIVE 33 



game beasts, I want to say a few words, before 

 quitting the great Mupa marshes, about the 

 teeming wild-fowl which there find an undis- 

 turbed home. 



The first time I visited this region, and long 

 before coming in sight of the great marsh I 

 have just described, I remember watching at 

 the close of day long lines of ducks and geese 

 flying overhead always in the same direction. 

 I supposed, as the question formed itself in my 

 mind, that they had flown inland from the not 

 very distant coastline, and were pursuing a 

 course toward some pieces of open water which I 

 knew to he somewhat to the north-east of the 

 foothills of the Cheringoma range. A day or 

 two later, continuing my journey to the coast, 

 I made a camp on the edge of the forest at a 

 point from which the apparently limitless line 

 of sedge and papyrus stretched unbroken to 

 the north and south. It is my custom, after 

 seeing the camp properly pitched, if there be 

 stiU sufficient light, to take a couple of men, a 

 rifle and a shot gun, and stroll away in any 

 direction which holds out reasonable hope of a 

 satisfactory result. On this particular evening 

 I crossed the mile-wide grassy ledge already 

 referred to, and speedily found myself on the 

 outskirts of the papyrus which bordered, together 

 with every other kind of reed, the huge swampy 

 marsh on its landward side. For some distance 

 I skirted it, until at length I found a well-paddled 

 tunnel leading towards the water, where the 

 muddy marsh soil showed the spoor of buffalo, 



