266 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
needed rousing), I dressed and got some breakfast while the 
animals were being packed and the tent, etc., struck and tied up. 
It took an hour and a half to pack the asses, and by 5.30 it 
was light enough to march ; for we could not start earlier in 
an unknown and pathless country. By noon we were generally 
camped at some suitable spot where a few trees or bushes 
furnished firewood ; our trusty friend the lake supplying water 
and securing us from all anxiety on the score of thirst—that 
most-to-be-dreaded of all calamities in African travel. 
In spite of the arid, barren nature of the country, there 
was a charm about the lake shore, and I enjoyed travelling 
along it, and always found something to interest me. There 
were the birds, in astonishing numbers and great variety,— 
pelicans sitting sleepily on the water and shoals, secure from 
crocodiles (for I watched one swim through a flock), or flying 
in skeins to and fro ; flocks of gulls and terns ; storks, herons 
of various kinds, ibises, egrets and many other small waders, 
with countless cormorants in two sizes ; besides numerous 
Egyptian geese, where damp lawns bordering the shore afford 
them grazing, but duck and teal singularly scarce. Game, too, 
was a little more plentiful, and I began to notice zebra spoor 
and occasionally an old rhino “ scrape ” again. We passed 
more islets with little settlements of El Molo in the many 
bays formed by this part of Bassu, until we rounded the bight 
of the lake where the shore suddenly trends for a spell, towards 
the west. Here the coast is exposed to the swell raised by 
the prevailing southerly and south-easterly winds, and the con¬ 
ditions are less favourable to both natives and birds. As we 
travelled along this part I noticed old beaches of various 
heights. Sometimes we would march along one far above the 
present level of the water, like a well-kept, wide, gravel carriage 
drive, at another part one ran along like a barrier reef, separated 
from the present shore by a lagoon. On these beaches the 
surf sometimes roared like the sea. After cutting across the 
promontory terminating this reach, whose extreme cape is 
