My African Journey

ation. If we have traversed wild and lonely lands, it has been in a railway carriage. We have disturbed the lion with the locomotive, and all our ex

tle cock-boat of our own. Back towards Mombasa, three days' journey will cover nine hundred miles. Forward, you will be lucky to make

o Wady Halfa, from Halfa to Berber, from Berber to Khartoum, from Khartoum to Fashoda, from Fashoda to Gondokoro, over a distance of nearly three thousand miles, stretches an uninterrupted service of trains and steamers. But between the landing-stage at Jinja and the landing-stag

imule and

Marsh. Dr. Gol

hill. Capt. Dickinson.

rney is to the Albert Lake. This second body of water, which, except in comparison with the Victoria Nyanza, would be impressive-it is more than a hundred miles long-lies at an altitude of two thousand three hundred feet above the sea. So that in its first two hundred miles the Nile exhausts in the exuberant improvidence of youth about a third of the impulse which is to carry

Chioga; and, lastly, five marches from the western end of Lake Chioga to the Albert Nyanza. Beyond this, again, four days in canoes and steel sailing-boats, towed by a launch, would carry us to Nimule, where the rapids on the White Nile begin, and in seve

e think of going to Scotland, and twenty days' "Safari" as if it were less than the journey to Paris. "Safari" is itself a Swahili word of Arabic origin, meaning an expedition and all that pertains to it. It comprises yourself and everybody and everything you take with you-food, tents, rifles, clothing, cooks, servants, escort, porters-but especially porters. Out of the r

e succeeding heap of loads, and there is a quarter of an hour of screaming and pushing-the strongest men making a bee-line for the lightest-looking loads, and being beaten off by the grim but voluble headman, the weakest weeping feebly besi

ack rock, broken or worn away in two main gaps to release the waters. Through these the Nile leaps at once into majestic being, and enters upon its course as a perfect river three hundred yards wide. Standing upon the reverse side of the wall of rock, one's eye may be almost on a plane with the shining levels of the Lake. At your very feet, literally a yard away, a vast green slope of water races downward. Below are foaming rapids, fringed by splen

ne near Ri

m the Nile, and led into a hilly and densely wooded region. The elephant-grass on each side of the track rose fifteen feet high. In the valleys great trees grew and arched above our heads, laced and twined together with curtains of flowering creepers. Here and there a glade opened to the right or left, and patches of vivid sunlight splashed into the gloom. Around the crossings of little streams butterflies

it. It consisted of two rows of green tents and a large "banda," or rest-house, as big as a large barn in England, standing in a nice, trim clearing. These "bandas" are a great feature of African travel; and the dutiful chief through whose territory we are passing had taken pains to make them on the most elaborate scale. He was not long in making his appearance with presents of various kind

e near t

ort of King's

nected with kitchens and offices of the same unsubstantial texture by veranda-shaded passages. In fact, they prove a high degree of social knowledge and taste in the natives, who make them with almost incredible rapidity from the vegetation of the surrounding jungle; and the sensation of entering one of these lofty, dim, cool, and spacious interiors, and sinking into the soft rush-bed of the floor, with something t

ith their burdens. Then the march begins. The obvious thing is to walk. There is no surer way of keeping well in Uganda than to walk twelve or fourteen miles a day. But if the traveller will not make the effort, there are alternatives. There is the rickshaw, which was described in the last chapter-restful, but tedious; and the litter, carried on the heads of six porters of different sizes, and shifted every now and then, with a disheartening jerk, to their shoulders and back again-this is quite as uncomf

ncam

and almost meets above the head, the bicycle skims along, swishing through the grass and brushing the encroaching bushes, at a fine pace; and although at every few hundred yards sharp rocks, loose stones, a water-course, or a steep hill compel dismounting, a good seven miles an hour can usually be maintain

g in the health of white officials and a valuable accession to their power. Had I known myself before coming to Uganda the advantages which this method presents, I should have been able to travel far more widely through the country by the simple expedient of trebling the stages of my journeys, and sending porters on a week in advance to pitch camps and

upon arrival. During the heat of the day every one retires to his tent or to the more effective shelter of the "banda," to read and sleep till the evening. Then

ally. The bedding, which should if possible be packed in tin boxes, is unrolled during the day, and carefully protected by mosquito-nets well tucked in, against all forms of vermin. Every one puts on mosquito-boots-long, soft, leather leggings, reaching to the hip

arelessly upon the ground, but put them away at once in a tin box, and shut it tight, or a perfect colony of fierce-biting creatures will beset them. And, above all, quinine! To the permanent resident in these strange countries no drug can be of much avail; for either its protection is diminished with habit, or the doses have to be increased to impossible limits. But the traveller, who is passing through on a journey of only a few months, may recur with safety and

or six times during the day-long caravans of native porters were met carrying the produce of the fertile districts between Lake Chioga and Mount Elgon into Jinja. Nothing could better show the need of improved communications than this incipient and

s. Here in Usoga, as throughout Uganda, the one staple crop is the banana; and as this fruit, when once planted, grows and propagates of its own accord, requiring no thought or exertion, it

s from its source, near four thousand from its mouth-it was a noble river: nearly a third of a mile in breadth of clear, deep water rolling forward majestically between banks of foliage and verdure. The "Chioga flotilla," consisting of the small steam launch, Victoria, a steel bo

houses, while dusk drew on, and thunderstorms-frequent at this season of the year-wheeled in vivid splendour about the dark horizon. All through the hot hours of the day one lay at the bottom of massive canoes, sheltered from the sun by an improvised roof of rushes and wet grass. From time to time a strange b

leven broad, but its area and perimeter are greatly extended by a series of long arms, or rather fingers, stretching out in every direction, but especially to the north, and affording access by water to very wide and various districts. All these arms, and even a great part of the centre of the lake, are filled with reeds, grass, and water-lilies, for Chioga is the first of the great sponges upon

presently emerging into wide flood, stopping often to clear our propeller from tangles of accumulating greenery. The middle of the lake unrolls large expanses of placid water. The banks and reeds recede in

y all the tribes are hostile. To pursue the elephants which, of course (so they say), abound in these forbidden precincts is impossible; to land for fo

ble township. All that meets the eye, however, are a score of funnel-shaped grass huts, surrounded by dismal swamps and labyrinths of reeds, over which clouds of mosquitoes danced feverishly. A long wattled pier had been built from terra firma to navigable water, but the channel by which it could be approached had been wholly blocked by a floating island, and this had to be towed painfully out of the way before we could land. Her

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