MY SECOND VOYAGE ON THE LAKE 59 



work of islands, across extensive bays bounded by broad 

 marshes on all sides, always hoping to find a landing-place. 

 Wherever the water seemed to ofier a clear passage, we made 



KAGEREBUM 



an attempt to gain the shore, sometimes making a mile in 

 the right direction, but only to be forced to return laboriously 

 on our tracks and try again and fail farther on. Our diffi- 

 culties were increased by the harmattan which was blowing 

 very strong at this season and had, no doubt, driven the water 

 westward. It rose every day at seven o'clock and by noon 

 the sun was blotted out by a dense damp mist through which 

 we had to grope our way, miserably cold. So swiftly and 

 strangely does the Lake shift under the influence of the wind, 

 that one morning on retracing our course of the evening 

 before we found the water had departed leaving numbers 

 •of enormous fish stranded in the shallows. Some were 4 ft. 

 long. 



