132 ALONG LAKE RUDOLF 



tlien turned back towards the lake, where we came upon them 

 again amono\st the o^uinea-fowL 



Soon after noon some of our men broua^ht the news that one 

 of the three elephants had come out of the lake, driven them 

 off from the dead animal from which they were just removing 

 the tusks, and taken refuge in the bushes close to the camp. 

 We went after him at once, but we had no luck, for he got off* 

 in spite of all the bullets we gave him, and we saw him dash 

 away some thirty paces from the camp. 



The beach here was quite flat, marshy, and covered with 

 algse. There was one patch of reeds, but otherwise the shore 

 was bare of vegetation. Without anything in the way of a 

 boat it was impossible to get to the water, and we had nothing 

 to drink till after the men had worked for hours at digging 

 holes in the otherwise dry bed of a stream. They came upon 

 a few deep pools of rainwater at a distance of some 1,000 

 paces from the camp ; so that there had evidently been a 

 heavy fall of rain in the neighbourhood not long ago. 



The natives of Alia, as this district is called, live upon two 

 unimportant and perfectly barren sandbanks, rising but little 

 above the level of the lake, where they lead a kind of amphibious 

 existence, scarcely differing from that of the crocodiles which, 

 with other wild animals, they kill and eat. The two islands 

 together are not more than half or one square mile in extent. 

 On the larger are from thirty to fifty, and on the smaller about 

 fifteen brown huts, of the hayrick shape, huddled closely to- 

 gether. The inhabitants number from 150 to 200, and live 

 almost entirely by fishing. They sometimes get a little dhurra 

 from the Eeshiat. Their sole possessions are one or two cows, a 

 dozen sheep, and perhaps a couple of dozen dogs. A third 

 uninhabited sandbank nearer the beach serves, with the muddy 

 bank, alike as storehouse for fuel, and mooring ground for 

 canoes. 



