266 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
very trying on the white sands, we settled to start at six o’clock 
the following evening. This we did, and arrived at a creek 
which we had to cross at 7.30. We had, however, to wait nearly 
two hours until the tide was low enough, and even then had 
to wade with the water up to our waists, and after that to hurry 
along as hard as we could go to reach the next creek before 
the tide had run up. This we did after an hour’s hard tramp, 
and had again to strip up to the waist in order to cross. Our 
seven dogs, which were swimming, found that it was as much 
as they could do to swim these long stretches with a heavy tide. 
We finally encamped at 12.30 among some uninviting sand-heaps. 
Next day we continued our march along the sands, the dogs 
pursuing, and snapping at the crabs which crawled into the 
sea in hundreds on our approach. One of our dogs, Iviboko 
(the hippopotamus) by name, who was always the clown of 
the pack, was caught by the nose by a large crab, with which 
he tore over the sands howling loudly, until one of our porters 
with some difficulty removed it. 
O11 our arrival on September 20th at the mouth of the Tana, 
Martin and I got the drag-net out, but were only successful 
in catching a few small fish and some excellent prawns. We 
then, with our servants, got into a large dug-out canoe, and 
sailed up the river through some fine tropical vegetation to a 
place where the Sultan had a small guard of irregular Arab 
soldiers. Here we were joined by the rest of the caravan. 
Early next morning I was awakened by the news that Mr. 
During, a missionary, a native of Sierra Leone, had arrived. 
He had kindly consented to do Iris best to buy me some dug- 
out canoes, a small fleet of which I knew would be required to 
carry our stores and the men’s food up the river. He had 
kindly brought down a small dhow which belonged to the 
mission, a sail in which was very pleasant after the tramp of 
the last week. We started at eight o’clock, the servants accom¬ 
panying us, but the caravan had to go overland and get along as 
best they could through the thick bush and mangrove swamps 
—a most unpleasant tramp. 
