385 
ch. xiii] LAKE ALBERT NYANZA 
date palms grew tall, and among the trees were some 
with orange-red flowers like trumpet flowers, growing 
in grape-shaped clusters ; and both the flowers and the 
seed-pods into which they turned stood straight up in 
rows above the leafy tops of the trees that bore them. 
The first evening, as we sat in the cool, open cane 
rest-house, word was brought us that an elephant was 
close at hand. W e found him after ten minutes’ walk : 
a young bull, with very small tusks, not worth shooting. 
For three-quarters of an hour we watched him, strolling 
about and feeding, just on the edge of a wall of high 
elephant grass. Although we were in plain sight, 
ninety yards off, and sometimes moved about, he never 
saw us ; for an elephant’s eyes are very bad. He was 
feeding on some thick, luscious grass, in the usual 
leisurely elephant fashion, plucking a big tuft, waving 
it nonchalantly about in his trunk, and finally tucking 
it into his mouth ; pausing to rub his side against a tree, 
or to sway to and fro as he stood; and continually 
waving his tail and half cocking his ears. 
At noon on January 5, 1910, we reached Butiaba, a 
sandspit and marsh on the shores of Lake Albert 
Nyanza. We had marched about one hundred and 
sixty miles from Lake Victoria. We camped on the 
sandy beach by the edge of the beautiful lake, looking 
across its waters to the mountains that walled in the 
opposite shore. At mid-day the whole landscape 
trembled in the white, glaring heat; as the afternoon 
waned a wind blew off the lake, and the west kindled 
in ruddy splendour as the sun went down. 
At Butiaba we took boats to go down the Nile to the 
Lado country. The head of the water transportation 
service in Uganda, Captain Hutchinson, R.N.R., met 
us, having most kindly decided to take charge of our 
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