EXPERIENCES IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 713 
sufficient stores ior a week were packed into the big heavy 
native boat and with our gunbearers and four stalwart 
savages to iow us we were very heavily laden indeed, and 
progress across the lake was slow, though it was far from dull, 
the immense flocks of water-fowl all round us and a flight of 
t rimson Flamingoes being of sufficient interest, while con- 
stantly a great pink head with twitching ears and little eves 
appeared above the water, as a curious “ Hippo ” came to 
investigate us ; all went well until about 3.30 in the afternoon, 
when we were three-quarters of the way across the lake, 
and then suddenly the wind sprang |up, the rain came 
down in torrents, and the water, which till then had been 
perfectly calm, quickly became very rough, and great waves 
threatened every moment to capsize 11s ; all our stores, car- 
tridges and tents were wet through in no time, and I began 
to be seriously alarmed that we should be upset, the boat 
being so overweighted ; however after a good deal of hard 
rowing we got close in shore, only to find a dense wall of 
Papyrus reeds nearly twenty feet high growing all round 
that side ot the lake which completely prevented us from 
landing there, neither could we see any land beyond. We 
rowed on and on, in a hurricane of wind, looking in vain 
for an opening in the Papyrus through which to force 
the boat ; for over an hour we rowed until we saw a grove 
of big trees on a small island right in the middle of the reeds ; 
this at any rate meant a solid bottom, and as it was getting 
very late and was nearly dark [I determined to try and 
land there for the night ; we had then, with axes, to cut a 
pathway through the Papyrus, to enable us to drag the boat 
through ; this was tremendously hard work and the heat was 
intense and it took a long time before we reached the trees, 
the tops of which we had seen from the water: these, as I had 
expected, grew on a small island, but it was so thickly over- 
grown with an almost impenetrable tangle of luxuriant 
tropical vegetation, covered with the most amazing creepers 
and traversed in all directions by Hippo paths, that even then 
we had the greatest difficulties in pitching our tents, and 
altogether spent a most unpleasant night, being short of food, 
