The Lions of Lake Edward 



follow him up, I found the old chap at his last gasp and finished 

 him off with little difficulty. On examination he proved 

 to be very old, of massive proportions, with horns worn 

 away almost to the core, and bUnd in the right eye. To 

 the latter fact I consider I owe my life — for it was its right 

 horn that missed me ! The beast was rolling in fat, and 

 this came in useful for the making of soap, our supply of 

 which had run out. 



On the Edward Lake, pelicans and natives fish together. 

 In-shore, fish of every description are so numerous that the 

 natives practise the most simple form of fishing imaginable. 

 This consists of merely walking along in a line in shallow 

 water, each with a capacious (i.e. magnified) crab-pot (without 

 a bottom) in one hand — ^which they push down at intervals 

 on to the lake mud — and a long spiked stick in the other, 

 on which to impale the fish when caught and extracted from 

 the top hole of the crab-pot. The pelicans seem to enjoy 

 it as much as the fishermen, for they swim in and out between 

 the moving line of natives and apparently find a rich harvest 

 amongst the disturbed shoals. A hippo or two are frequently 

 seen as interested spectators, taking little notice of the ordinary 

 savage. They are, however, cunning enough to know the 

 red tarbush of the Belgian native soldier when he appears, 

 and will then keep at a respectful distance. The Belgians 

 have the rather foolish custom of supplying their soldiery 

 with a too Hberal amount of ammunition, which they shoot 

 off at any game they happen to see. 



One evening we were watching the fishing scene I have 

 just described when our long-looked-for boat turned up. 

 Showing first as a speck out on the lake, it presently resolved 

 itself into a twenty-five-foot steel barge-like craft, manned 



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