CHAP. XII.] 
INHOSPITABLE NATIVES. 
351 
we might land and enjoy the scene. We then dis¬ 
covered seven elephants on the shore within about two 
hundred yards of us in high grass, while the main herd of 
fourteen splendid bulls bathed majestically in the placid 
lake, showering cold streams from their trunks over 
their backs and shoulders. There was no time to lose, 
as every hour was important: quitting the shore, we 
once more paddled along the coast. 
Day after day passed, the time occupied in travelling 
from sunrise to mid-day, at which hour a strong gale 
with rain and thunder occurred regularly, and obliged 
us to haul our canoes ashore. The country was very 
thinly inhabited, and the villages were poor and 
wretched; the people most inhospitable. At length 
we arrived at a considerable town situated in a 
beautiful bay beneath precipitous cliffs, the grassy 
sides of which were covered with flocks of goats ; this 
was Eppigoya, and the boatmen that we had procured 
from the last village were to deliver us in this spot. 
The delays in procuring boatmen were most annoying: 
it appeared that the king had sent orders that each 
village was to supply the necessary rowers; thus we 
were paddled from place to place, at each of which the 
men were changed, and no amount of payment would 
induce them to continue with us to the end of our voyage. 
Landing at Eppigoya we were at once met by the 
headman, and I proposed that- he should sell us a few 
kids, as the idea of a mutton chop was most appetizing. 
Far from supplying us with this luxury, the natives 
immediately drove their flocks away, and after receiving 
a large present of beads, the headman brought us a 
present of a sick lamb almost at the point of natural 
death, and merely skin and bone. Fortunately there 
were fowls in thousands, as the natives did not use 
them for food; these we purchased for one blue bead 
(monjoor) each, which in current value was equal 
to 250 fowls for a shilling. Eggs were brought in 
baskets containing several hundreds, but they were all 
poultry. 
