cularly at Lake Krawa, a large swamp or lake some distance
above Marereni; so I determined to go and have a look at
the place, and see what were its possibilities in this respect.
Accordingly I started for Krawa on October 13, with a
few porters, accompanied by Bwana Ahmed Bedwin and his
brother, Arabs, and both.noted shikaries, who had killed all
kinds of larger game— lions, elephants, etc. They also
possessed a thorough knowledge of the country I wanted to
visit. .
Nothing of special note occurred during the first part of
our journey; it was high tide, and all the mangrove swamps
along our path were flooded ; Bwana Bedwin said that a
similar high tide occurred eveiy ten days.
After leaving Gongoni, we had for some time been following
the direct path to Marereni, when the Arabs suddenly struck
off to the left, saying it was much shorter. All my porters
were behind, our front party consisting only of the Arabs,
myself, an Arab soldier, and my faithful head-man Dumgu ;
so I sent the last-named back to tell the porters of this
shorter road, and to say that we would await them at a small
pool some distance ahead, about six miles from Marereni.
We waited some time at this pool, arid as the porters did not
appear, I sent off the Kiroboto or Arab soldier to look out for
them. Two o’clock passed and still no sign of them. Bedwin
fired off his gun twice on the chance of their hearing it, and
then sent his brother to -look for them.
After a very long time the Kiroboto returned from Marereni
and reported no sign of the porters ; then Bedwin’s brother
presently returned, also unsuccessful, and matters began to
look, serious. The Arabs told me it was the custom of porters
when left alone to simply march on and on !
We were all very hungry, and the five of us shared a
metamah biscuit which the askari had with him. I was
just about to send him off a second time when Dumgu at last
appeared with a tin of biscuits. He had found the porters,
and they were following him ; it seems they had passed
our turn to the left, and where they had gone to goodness
only knows; they were marching straight ahead and trying
to overtake me, when luckily they heard Bedwin’s two
shots • so they had already turned back when Dumgu met
them ’ All’s well that ends well S we were very glad of the
biscuits, as it was then 5-30 P-m- and we had been without
food since 5-3° that morning 1
. It was too late to go any further that day, so we camped
M Y H E A D -M A N DUMGU.
by the small pool, and I had a long chat in the evening with
the two Arabs, whom I entertained with coffee and
cigarettes.
We struck camp early next morning, leaving exactly at
6.20 a.m., and travelled first along back-waters— two of whioh