At Length Canoes Were Reported
To Have Arrived, And I Was Requested To Inspect Them.
They were merely
single trees neatly hollowed out, but very inferior in size to the large
canoes on the Nile at M'rooli.
The largest boat was thirty-two feet
long, but I selected for ourselves one of twenty-six feet, but wider and
deeper.
Fortunately I had purchased at Khartoum an English screw auger 1 1/4
inch in diameter, and this tool I had brought with me, foreseeing some
difficulties in boating arrangements. I now bored holes two feet apart
in the gunwale of the canoe, and having prepared long elastic wands, I
spanned them in arches across the boat and lashed them to the auger
holes. This completed, I secured them by diagonal pieces, and concluded
by thatching the framework with a thin coating of reeds to protect us
from the sun; over the thatch I stretched ox-hides well drawn and
lashed, so as to render our roof waterproof. This arrangement formed a
tortoise-like protection that would be proof against sun and rain. I
then arranged some logs of exceedingly light wood along the bottom of
the canoe, and covered them with a thick bed of grass; this was covered
with an Abyssinian tanned ox-hide, and arranged with Scotch plaids. The
arrangements completed, afforded a cabin, perhaps not as luxurious as
those of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's vessels, but both rain-
and sun-proof, which was the great desideratum. In this rough vessel we
embarked on a calm morning, when hardly a ripple moved the even surface
of the lake. Each canoe had four rowers, two at either end. Their
paddles were beautifully shaped, hewn from one piece of wood, the blade
being rather wider than that of an ordinary spade, but concave in the
inner side, so as to give the rower a great hold upon the water. Having
purchased with some difficulty a few fowls and dried fish, I put the
greater number of my men in the larger canoe; and with Richarn, Saat,
and the women, including the interpreter Bacheeta, we led the way, and
started from Vacovia on the broad surface of the Albert N'yanza. The
rowers paddled bravely; and the canoe, although heavily laden, went
along at about four miles an hour. There was no excitement in Vacovia,
and the chief and two or three attendants were all who came to see us
off; they had a suspicion that bystanders might be invited to assist as
rowers, therefore the entire population of the village had deserted.
At leaving the shore, the chief had asked for a few beads, which, on
receiving, he threw into the lake to propitiate the inhabitants of the
deep, that no hippopotami should upset the canoe.
Our first day's voyage was delightful. The lake was calm, the sky
cloudy, and the scenery most lovely. At times the mountains on the west
coast were not discernible, and the lake appeared of indefinite width.
We coasted within a hundred yards of the east shore; sometimes we passed
flats of sand and bush of perhaps a mile in width from the water to the
base of the mountain cliffs; at other times we passed directly
underneath stupendous heights of about 1,500 feet, which ascended
abruptly from the deep, so that we fended the canoes off the sides, and
assisted our progress by pushing against the rock with bamboos.
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