FIEST SIGHT OF THE EESHIAT 165 



green foliage and sandy soil, quite park-like in appearance. 

 Walking was almost a delight on the dry ground in the clear 

 pure air. Countless birds rather bigger than swallows, with 

 beautiful red plumage, azure-blue heads, and long thin tail 

 feathers, circled continuously about our heads and filled the 

 air with a deafening twittering. Their nests, of which there 

 were thousands, were in holes in the flat ground. After an hour's 

 walk we issued from the wood, which extended in a westerly 

 direction to the side of the lake. Then came a stretch of 

 ground strewn with human skulls and bones, the unfavourable 

 impression of which was removed a little later, when we found 

 ourselves amongst numerous herds of oxen and donkeys grazing 

 quite unguarded — a sure sign of the peaceful intentions of the 

 natives. Soon we were once more on the beach, here over- 

 grown with rushes and flanked by the low sandy hills at the 

 northern base of which we knew, from Qualla's account, we 

 should find the Eeshiat villas; e. And there, sure enouoh, some 

 1,100 yards ofl", it lay, rising up distinctly against the gleaming 

 white sand, surrounded by crowds of natives. Most of them 

 were warriors, armed with spears and long narrow shields, who 

 watched our movements as eagerly as we did theirs. 



Arrived on the beach, we halted, the men at once going 

 off* to collect material for the fence, whilst we took a good look 

 at the natives through our glasses. This was perhaps the most 

 interesting day of our whole journey, for we were now for the 

 first time face to face with a perfectly unknown people. And 

 the way in which these natives, who had hitherto lived quietly 

 far away from the rest of the world, received us on this first 

 day of our arrival was so simple, so utterly unlike anything 

 related in the accounts of their experiences by African travellers, 

 that we could not get over our astonishment. First came a 

 party of ten or twelve warriors, and behind them a group of 

 some sixty or eighty men, who advanced fearlessly towards our 



