A PAPYRUS SWAMP 
207 
CH. IX] 
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 country ; for a new country is a poor 
place for the weak and incompetent, 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 
honour, 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, graceful, with its pale flowering 
crown; and they are typical of the tropics, and their 
mere sight suggests a vertical sun and hot, steaming 
swamps, where great marsh beasts feed and wallow and 
bellow, amidst a teeming reptilian life. A fringe of 
papyrus here and there adds much to the beauty of a 
