Two
Of The Agai Ambu Canoes Were Lashed Together And A Raft Of Split
Bamboo Put Across Them, And Two Agai Ambu Men Punted And Paddled Us
About.
Before starting we had first educated them up to the report
of our guns, and after a few shots they soon got over their fright.
The lake positively swarmed with water-fowl, including several
varieties of duck, also shag, divers, pigmy geese, small teal, grebe,
red-headed plover, spur-wing plover, curlew, sandpipers, snipe,
swamp hen, water-rail, and many other birds. The red-headed plover
were especially numerous, and ran about on the surface of the lake,
which was covered with the water-lily leaves and a thick sort of mossy
weed. All the birds seemed remarkably tame, and we got a good assorted
bag, chiefly duck - enough to supply most of our large force with.
I stopped most of the time on the raised platform of one of the
houses and shot the duck, which Acland and Monckton put up, as
they flew over my head. I had a companion in old Giwi, the chief
of the Kaili-kailis, many of whom were among our carriers. He
seemed to be on very friendly terms with one of the Agai Ambu on
whose hut I was. Presently a woman came over in a canoe from one
of the houses in the far village, and climbed up on to the platform
where we were. Directly she saw old Giwi, she caught hold of him and
hugged and kissed him all over and rubbed her face against his body,
covering him with the black pigment with which she had smeared her
face.
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