Through Ruanda to Lake Kiwu 79 
and then that a pair of fox-geese flew up from the pebbly banks. 
The singing gradually stopped, and only the measured beat of 
the paddles in the water broke the stillness. 
We took three days to cross the lake, resting for a short time on 
Mugarura Island, and again at the Mhoro Falls, which drop into 
the lake in high cascades. At length, on the 19th of August, we 
were close to Kissenji. At first we could only hazily discern its 
outlines on account of the mist which again obscured the scene. 
Then, after a little, the outline took shape, and grew into trim 
houses, whose white colouring made them look pretty and cheerful 
in the sunshine. Then further on we saw the grass roofs of a 
long, extensive town, the eastern side of which was closed in by 
the bamboo huts of our cantonment, and the western by the 
station and the guard house. A street, as straight as an arrow 
and fringed with eucalyptus trees, which ran along the bank of 
the lake like a marine parade, connected the township with the 
station. It was not long before we made out our lodgings, a 
charming little house, whitewashed and with a grass roof, from 
which my country’s banner was waving a greeting to us; it was 
encircled by a trimly kept garden richly grown with bananas and 
gay flowers, and had only been completed a few days earlier. 
A “tea-house,” finished in the same style, beckoned to us invit¬ 
ingly from the hill. 
In honour of our arrival the whole town was gaily decorated 
with flags, or, rather, with substitutes for flags—red, blue, and 
white cloths, also gaudily painted Kanga (coloured stuffs much in 
favour for wearing apparel, and therefore useful as barter goods), 
which waved on all the houses. The entire house fronts, too, 
were ornamented with gaudy fabrics, and gave the town a really 
festive appearance. 
Kissenji is the north-western military post of the German East 
African Territory. Like its Belgian neighbour, which is twenty 
minutes’ distance away by boat, it lies in the Territoire conteste; 
that is to say, in the Belgian-German boundary territory, the 
ultimate apportionment of which has yet to be diplomatically 
determined. 
