We Then Took Boat Again, An
Immense Canoe, And, After Going A Short Distance, Emerged From
The Kafu, 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 fisherman, 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 delay, we
managed 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 Gani. 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 could he be countenanced as a friend
when the men under him steal from us?
The big boat gave us the slip, floating away and leaving its
paddles behind.
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Words from 193479 to 193980
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