260 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION, 
stern-sheets of my boat, but as I was about to lie down, 
I heard the natives expostulating. I knew by this that 
the boat’s crew must be committing depredations on 
their fish stores ; so I sprang out — and only just in 
time to save them a serious loss. Murabo had already 
made himself master of half-a-dozen large fish, when I 
came up with naked feet behind him, announcing my 
arrival by a staggering blow, which convinced the 
fishermen better than any amount of blandness and 
affectation of amiability could have done that I was 
sincere, and convinced the Wangwana also that injustice 
would not be permitted. The fishermen received a 
handful of beads as an atonement for the attempted 
spoliation, and to secure the Wangwana against further 
temptation, I gave them double rations. 
The next morning, when 
I woke, I found that we 
were camped under the 
shadow of a basaltic cliff, 
about fifty feet high, at 
the base of which was the 
fishermen’s cavern, extend- 
ing about fifteen feet 
within. The island was 
lofty, about 400 feet’above 
the lake at its hio-hest 
© 
part, nearly four miles in length, and a mile and a half 
across at its greatest breadth. The inhabitants con- 
sisted of about forty families from Ukerewe, and owned 
King Lukongeh as their liege lord. 
The summit of Alice Island is clothed with an abund- 
ance of coarse grass, and the ravines and hollows are 
choked with a luxuriance of vegetable life — trees, plants, 
ferns, ground orchids, and wild pine-apples : along the 
water’s edge there waves a thin strip of water-cane. 
The people became fast friends with us, but their keen 
trading instincts impelled them to demand such ex- 
orbitant prices for every article, that we were unable to 
purchase more than a few ears of corn. I obtained a 
view from the summit with my field-glass, but I could 
