98 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



around us, till at last the Jemadar's phrase was, 

 " strength is useless here. 7 ' Had I led, however, three 

 hundred instead of thirty matchlocks, he would have 

 crouched and cowered like a whipped cur. 



At 4 p.m., on the 9th April, appeared before the 

 Kannena in a tattered red turban donned for the oc- 

 casion. He was accompanied by his ward, who was 

 to perform the voyage as a training to act sultan, and 

 he was followed by his sailors bearing salt, in company 

 with their loud-voiced wives and daughters performing 

 upon the wildest musical instruments. Of these the 

 most noisy was a kind of shaum, a straight, long and 

 narrow tube of wood, bound with palm-fibre and pro- 

 vided with an opening mouth like a clarionet ; a dis- 

 tressing bray is kept up by blowing through a hole 

 pierced in the side. The most monotonous was a pair of 

 foolscap-shaped plates of thin iron, joined at the apices and 

 connected at the bases by a solid cross-bar of the same 

 metal ; this rude tomtom is performed upon by a muffled 

 stick with painful perseverance ; the sound — how harshly 

 it intruded upon the stilly beauty of the scenes around ! 

 — still lingers and long shall linger in my tympanum. 

 The canoe had been moved from its usual position opposite 

 our Tembe, to a place of known departure — otherwise 

 not a soul could have been persuaded to embark — and 

 ignoring the distance, I condemned myself to a hobble of 

 three miles over rough and wet ground. The night was 

 comfortless ; the crew, who w r ere all " half-seas over," 

 made the noise of bedlamites ; and two heavy falls of 

 rain drenching the flimsy tent, at once spoiled the 

 tobacco and flour, the grain and the vegetables pre- 

 pared for the voyage. 



Early on the next morning we embarked on board 

 the canoes : the crews had been collected, paid, and 

 rationed, but as long as they were near home it was 



