ng 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 coun