Lake Victoria 
21 
botanical, and geological specimens by special caravan to Bukoba 
for transport to Europe. 
The feverish activity displayed in camp on one of these 
so-called “ rest days is hardly describable. Writing went on 
uninterruptedly in every tent. The zoologist would sit bending 
over his collection, busy and eager with his microscopes, designa¬ 
tions, and labelling. Every creature, however tiny, received a 
number, and this was noted in the ledger. Around the botanist’s 
tent a number of bulky presses containing dried plants might be 
observed, and at their side innumerable rolls of paper for drying 
purposes, which would suddenly be whirled up into the air by a 
sharp gust of wind. Then the learned doctor, with streaming 
hair, would come flying out of his tent in great alarm about his 
valued treasures, calling out for volunteers to arrest the deserters. 
The ethnographer could be seen in the midst of a circle of natives 
whom he had gathered about him, and who, unconcernedly and 
with stoical indifference, permitted him to make all kinds of 
measurements and take any number of photographs. 
The occasional smile seen flitting across the black man’s 
countenance at the white man’s (“ Mstingus ”) doings and the 
responsive confidential nod from a neighbour meant “ wasimu ” 
—crazy! My faithful Weidemann was to be seen busily engaged 
in apportioning the Europeans’ food stores between the m pis hi 
—the cook—and the special caravans. Each member of the ex¬ 
pedition had been allotted a certain number of Askari, “boys,” 
carriers, and carrier leaders whilst the expedition lasted. Thus 
the whole big caravan was subdivided into ten smaller self- 
dependent safari —caravans. In this way irksome new orders 
were limited to a minimum—in fact, were only needed in case of 
sickness and death—and the staff worked admirably side by side 
with their leaders. The distribution of stores and barter goods, 
however, took place each month at headquarters. 
In front of the caravan-leader’s tent barter goods for the 
mountain districts might be seen heaped up, and here would 
congregate the sultans whose people had brought commissariat 
along and who wished to receive payment. Differences of opinion 
