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C H A P T E R X V
LAKE KRAWA
Nubian Labourers—Proposed Visit of Sir Gerald Portal— Start to explore
Lake Krawa—Arab Shikaries— My Caravan Astray—A Long Fast—
- Oil Palms—Lake Krawa and the Kilifi River— Game— Mosquitoes—
Reconnoitring the Country— Return to the Shambas— Scarcity of Grain
H — Disinterested Arabs— Flooded Back-waters— Dead Beat— Sir Gerald
Portal’s Mission to Uganda— A Shooting Party— A Lion Story—
Christmas at Mombasa— A Wretched New Year’s Day— Fever—
Mango Crop— Mr. Weaver’s Work at the Shambas.
T hanks to Weaver’s watchful supervision all was going on
well on the shambas.
Lions had again made their appearance, and made an
awful row the night of my return, roaring all night through.
Weaver, who had come down to see me, and had walked
back to Magarini after dinner, wrote next morning that
they must have been very close to him as he went home.
I was glad to receive a satisfactory report of the behaviour
of a recent addition to the estate labourers— some Nubians
from Emin Pasha’s Equatorial Province, who had been brought
down to Mombasa by one of the Uganda caravans. Not
wishing to go to Eg ypt they came up to these plantations,
and appeared to be industrious and willing.
While at Mombasa, Mr. Berkeley told me that the Consul-
; General at Zanzibar (the late Sir Gerald Portal) proposed
visiting the Melindi district, and would be glad to get a little
wild-game shooting at the same time, if this could be managed.
He asked me to make any necessary arrangements.
When last at Marereni I had heard a good deal of the game
to be fognd oqe or two days’ march to the northward, parti