210 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
of Lake Naivasha. It is a lovely sheet of water, surrounded 
by hills and mountains, the shores broken by rocky prom¬ 
ontories, and indented by papyrus-fringed bays. Next 
morning we shifted camp four miles to a place on the farm, 
and near the house, of the Messrs. Attenborough, settlers 
on the shores of the lake, who treated us with the most 
generous courtesy and hospitality—as, indeed, did all the 
settlers we met. They were two brothers; one had lived 
twenty years on the Pacific Coast, mining in the Sierras, 
and the other had just retired from the British navy, with 
the rank of commander; they were able to turn their hands 
to anything, and were just the men for work in a new coun¬ 
try—for a new country is a poor place for the weak and in¬ 
competent, whether of body or mind. They had a steam 
launch and a big heavy row-boat, and they most kindly 
and generously put both at our disposal for hippo hunting. 
At this camp I presented the porters with twenty-five 
sheep, as a recognition of their good conduct and hard work; 
whereupon they improvised long chants in my honor, and 
feasted royally. 
We spent one entire day with the row-boat in a series 
of lagoons near camp, which marked an inlet of the lake. 
We did not get any hippo, but it was a most interesting 
day. A broad belt of papyrus fringed the lagoons and 
jutted out between them. The straight green stalks with 
their feathery heads rose high and close, forming a mass so 
dense that it was practically impenetrable save where the 
huge bulk of the hippos had made tunnels. Indeed, even 
for the hippos it was not readily penetrable. The green 
monotony of a papyrus swamp becomes wearisome after a 
while; yet it is very beautiful, for each reed is tall, slender. 
