340 
ARRANGE CANOES FOR LAKE VOYAGE, [chap. xii. 
thirty-two feet long, but I selected for ourselves one of 
twenty-six feet, but wider and deeper. Fortunately I 
bad purchased at Khartoum an English screw auger 
ll inch in diameter, and this tool I had brought with 
me, foreseeing some difficulties in boating arrange¬ 
ments. I now bored holes two feet apart in the gun¬ 
wale of the canoe, and having prepared long elastic 
wands, I spanned them in arches across the boat and 
lashed them to the auger holes. This completed, I 
secured them by diagonal pieces, and concluded by 
thatching the framework with a thin coating of reeds 
to protect us from the sun ; over the thatch I stretched 
ox hides well drawn and lashed, so as to render our 
roof water-proof. This arrangement formed a tortoise¬ 
like protection that would be proof against sun and 
rain. I then arranged some logs of exceedingly light 
wood along the bottom of the canoe, and covered them 
with a thick bed of grass; this was covered with an 
Abyssinian tanned ox hide, and arranged with Scotch 
plaids. The arrangements completed, afforded a cabin, 
perhaps not as luxurious as those of the Peninsular 
and Oriental Company’s vessels, but both rain and 
sun-proof, which was the great desideratum. In this 
rough vessel we embarked on a calm morning when 
hardly a ripple moved the even surface of the lake. 
Each canoe had four rowers, two at either end. Their 
paddles were beautifully shaped, hewn from one piece 
of wood, the blade being rather wider than that of 
an ordinary spade, but concave in the inner side, so 
as to give the rower a great hold upon the water. 
Having purchased with some difficulty a few fowls 
and dried fish, I put the greater number of my men 
in the larger canoe; and with Eicharn, Saat, and the 
women, including the interpreter Bacheeta, we led the 
way, and started from Yacovia on the broad surface of 
the Albert N yanza. The rowers paddled bravely ; 
and the canoe, although heavily laden, went along at 
about four miles an hour. There was no excitement 
in Yacovia, and the chief and two or three attendants 
