We were now expected to march again, but being
m -,I anxious myself to see more of the river, before To Kitwara, 10iA. / . ’ starting, 1 obtained leave to go by boat as
far as the river was navigable, sending our cattle by land.
To this concession was accompanied a request for a few
more gun-caps, and liberty was given us to seize any
pombd which might be found coming on the river in boats,
for the supplies to the palace all come in this manner.
We then took boat again, an immense canoe, and, after
going a short distance, emerged from the Kafii, and found
ourselves on what at first appeared a long lake, averaging
from two hundred at first to one thousand yards broad,
before the day’s work was out; but this was the Nile
again, navigable in this way from Urondogani.
Both sides were fringed with the huge papyrus rush.
The left one was low and swampy, whilst the right one—
in which the Kidi people and Wanyoro occasionally hunt
—rose from the water in a gently sloping bank, covered
with trees and beautiful convolvuli, which hung in festoons.
Floating islands, composed of rush, grass, and
ferns, were continually in motion, working their way
slowly down the stream, and proving to us that the Nile
was in full flood. On one occasion we saw hippopotami,
which our men said came to the surface because we had
domestic fowls on board, supposing them to have an antipathy
to that bird. Boats there were, which the sailors
gave chase to ; but, as they had no liquor, they were
allowed to go their way, and the sailors, instead, set to
lifting baskets and taking fish from the snares which
fishermen, who live in small huts amongst the rushes,
had laid for themselves.
After arrival, as We found the boatmen wished to make
off, instead of carrying out their king’s orders to take us
to the waterfall, we seized all the paddles, and kept their
tongues quiet by giving them a cow to eat. The overland
route, by which Kidgwiga and the cattle went, was
not so interesting, by all accounts, as the river one; for
they walked the whole way through marshy ground, and
crossed one drain in boats, where some savages struggled
to plunder our men of their goats.
With a great deal of difficulty, and after hours of de-
To Koki, \m. we ma“aged to get under way with two
boats besides the original one; and, after an
hour and a half’s paddling, in the laziest manner possible,
the men seized two pots of pombe and pulled in to Koki',
guided by a king’s messenger, who said this was one of
the places appointed by order to pick up recruits for the
force which was to take us to G-ani. We found, however,
nothing but loss and disappointment—one calf stolen,
and five goats nearly so. Fortunately, the thief who
attempted to run off with the goats was taken by my
men in the act, tied with his hands painfully tight behind
his back, and left, with his face painted white, till
midnight, when his comrades stole into Bombay’s hut and
released him. After all these annoyances, the chief officer
of the place offered us a present of a goat, but was sent to
the right-about in scorn. How cquld he be countenanced
as a friend when the men under him steal from us ?
The big boat gave us the slip, floating away and leav-
To Gtt&i, s., iQg its paddles behind. To supply its place,
we took six small boats, turning my men into
sailors, and going as we liked. The river still continued
beautiful; but after paddling three hours we found it
bend considerably, and narrow to two hundred yards, the
average depth being from two to three fathoms. ■ At
the fourth hour, imagining our cattle to be far behind,
we.pulled in, and walked up a well-cultivated hill to
Yaragonjo’s, the governor of these parts. The guide,
however, on first sighting his thorn-fenced cluster of huts,
regarding it apparently with the awe and deference due to
a palace, shrank from advancing, and merely pointed, till
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