In the Heart of Africa 
98 
boughs of which droop down over the surface of the water. The 
very luxuriant undergrowth renders it very difficult to penetrate 
the forest, so that Mildbraed, after many unsuccessful attempts 
to procure certain kinds of wood, adopted the scheme of shoot¬ 
ing from the boats at the branches of trees on the banks—a 
somewhat unique method of botanising. The rest of the island 
has the steppe character. Right in front of our tents stood two 
medium-sized specimens of the glorious Erythrina tomentosa, the 
most beautiful of the African steppe trees. Its great blood-red 
blossoms form the favourite food of the sun-birds {nectariniidcB)^ 
those diminutive, most gorgeously coloured birds which in Africa 
take the place of humming-birds. With their long beaks, these 
dwarfs of African ornithology search the blooms for insects. 
There is an incessant soft flitting from tree to tree. I was able 
in a very short time to secure five different species for our collec¬ 
tion, several of each kind, and I could have increased this 
number to any extent. Other striking denizens of the island, 
which always gave me pleasure whenever I came across them, 
were the grey parrots, the “kasuku” of the Wasuaheli. Their 
sonorous call-notes resounded from morn to eve from the trees 
behind our tents. The proudest bird, however, and the strongest, 
the ruler of Wau, so to speak, is the screaming sea-eagle. 
Motionless, as though stiff and frozen, sitting in his favourite 
resting-places (tall, decayed trees on the banks), the lonely, 
stately bird, high above the sea of foliage, with the lake gleam¬ 
ing silver in the tropical sun for a background, offers a picture 
which no painter’s hand could improve upon. 
Bush-buck are the only larger kind of mammals which live on 
Wau. There have been manifold speculations as to how they got 
there, and as to the beginning of the island’s formation. Kandt 
and the members of the Boundary Commission came upon their 
tracks, but could not capture the animals themselves. It was 
thus important for us to obtain a specimen of these islanders, 
who had without doubt been cut off from the mainland for a 
very long period. I found a trail immediately on making my 
first round tour of the northern point of the island. Perhaps I 
