proceeding for an liour the scene changed: we were
upon a river a thousand yards wide, and in certain
parts so large that we had a sea horizon. The waters
struggling past myriads of moving and stationary
islands, made the navigation very exciting, particularly
when a strong head-wind blew, and hippopotami reared
their heads in the water. Having passed these, there
was no perceptible current; hut by watching the floating
islands rolling round and round like a tub in the
water, we saw that the stream moved about a mile an
hour. These islands were perfect thickets of growing
ferns, creepers, small trees, &c., hiding one-third of the
stems of the lofty papyrus rush. It occurred to me at
the time, seeing such masses of these islands, some being
twenty yards in length, that the delta of the Nile
could easily he accounted for by an accumulation of
their sediment. During a smart breeze, with all their
vegetation yielding, and lying over to the wind, they
looked like a fleet of felucca-rigged vessels racing, and
continually changing their relative positions. No sight
could have been more striking as the crests of the
waves dashed against them, and the sky looked black
and stormy. It was a beautifully wild picture; the
slender stems of the tall papyrus, with their feathery
tops, now erect, then waving to and fro, or crouching
before the sudden blast, as if prepared for a spring.
By the third day all the islands had disappeared;
they had melted away into floating fragments, or had
got ashore, and lay over—wrecks—the leaves and
fronds drooping in shapeless disorder.
Where the river was above 500 yards wide, the
colour of the water in the centre was quite muddy
from the freshes ; that of the sides a clear brown. The
greatest depth was eighteen feet, which it preserved,
with a hard bottom, till within a boat’s length of
the side, where it became nine feet deep, with a
bottom of mud. As it narrowed between steep banks
to 200 yards, there was no impediment to landing;
the waters then became of a uniform dark colour, and
were shallower, flowing with a current of about half a
mile an hour. We landed daily to sleep ashore, and
had to pass through a long channel of water vegetation,
as the sides in most places where the river was
of such immense width were walled in by a depth of
reeds, rushes, and convolvuli. An interesting custom
amongst the boatmen was observed as we paddled
past an old pensioned canoe of huge size which lay
in the rushes. A boatman patted my shoulder, and
then sprinkled water upon the veteran boat. I did
the same, which pleased the natives, who never pass
it without paying this mark of respect.
Many fine scenes were come upon at reaches and
bends of the river. One with a precipitous doubleconed
hill called M’kungurru, on the right bank, was
remarkably pleasing, the river sweeping majestically
round its wooded heights. This hill was reckoned to
be 800 feet above the water, and for a long distance
it served as a prominent landmark. The Kidi side
of the river was undulating, wild, and uninhabited,
covered with handsome trees overspread with a network
of flowering creepers, then, in the month of November,
in rich bloom, and presenting every contrast
of colour. It was the hunting-ground of the Wanyoro
and Kidi people.
We had some exciting chases after canoes seen on
the river, the king having given the officials who were