On Sunday, February 8, our road lay, for the most part, at some little distance from the lake, which was out of sight till the end of the journey. We plodded on through long grass and past burnt patches. The track is only about a foot wide, and in consequence the loads of the donkeys extended beyond it on either side. When they were among the tall growth they had to sweep it aside from their burden as they went, and this tired them greatly.
We reached the edge of the lake at two o’clock, after an unbroken journey of six and a half hours, and pitched our camp. About two hundred yards from the shore five hippos were standing, well clear of the water. They looked for all the world like rocks, even when we brought field-glasses to bear on them. After lunch Crawley had the Berthon boat put together, and I rowed him towards the hippos. When we were within a hundred yards of them, I considered that the range was quite short enough to give the marksman an opportunity of displaying his skill, and he got no nearer. He began practice at once, but the boat was pitching rather sharply, and this made aiming with the rifle almost chance-work. Presently the sport became like firing at disappearing targets, for the hippos rose only once in two or three minutes to breathe. If they had taken my friend seriously, we should probably not have left Lake Tsana, and I felt relieved when he had had enough of the pastime and we rowed ashore.
Various small offerings of milk and bread reached us from the hamlets around. The milk is always sour. The Habashes do not drink it when it is fresh, and as a consequence they never wash the gourds in which they keep it, because it “turns” sooner in a dirty receptacle. At a few places we were able to have the cows brought into camp, and stored the milk in our own vessels, but this was impossible when we only remained one night on a camping-ground.
That evening Johannes, the interpreter, had a touch of fever. On the previous night his tent had been close to the papyrus swamp, and this, no doubt, accounted for the attack.
On the following day, February 9, our road lay through more broken country and more pleasing scenery. The track led us up hills, and down them, and between them, and sometimes close beside the lake. I saw no trees in this region but mimosas; the ground was covered in places by mimosa scrub, in others by dry grass. We made a march of seventeen miles, as we reckoned, a longer distance than we had travelled on the previous day. The donkeys were tired out at the end of the journey. Some stood still and refused to move, others lay down under their burdens in the path. We camped on the shore of the lake, at a spot very similar to that which we had chosen for our last halting-place.
The interpreter’s fever had yielded considerably to the usual quinine treatment, and he seemed very little the worse for his long ride in the heat.
In the evening the wind rose and presently blew hard enough to make me wonder whether my tent would collapse or not. I observed that very soon enough wash was knocked up in the deeper water to stop the headway of a rowing-boat. The lake would be a perfect place for fishing and sailing in the dry season. But without experience and watchfulness, risks would arise—quite apart from the humours of the hippopotami.[102]
On Tuesday, February 10, after a journey of about twelve miles through tall grass that impeded our baggage-train, we reached the village of Delgi, and pitched our camp upon the same ground which we had chosen for our first halting-place beside the lake. To the best of my belief, we were the only Europeans who had ever completed the circuit of this lovely reservoir of the Nile—the distance in all is one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy miles. Those who love regions beyond the outposts of our civilization, where the tourist ceases from troubling, could not seek isolation amid sweeter surroundings than this sunlit lake, these tropical mountains, and the quaint, quiet hamlets of a primitive people, who as yet, thank Heaven, have not been infected with “Yankee hustle.”
The level of the surface of the water had sunk perceptibly since we were here a month ago, and many rocks were now visible which had then been covered. But I do not think the variation between the maximum height in the rainy season and the minimum in the dry is very great; I doubt if it exceeds eight or ten feet.
At midday we noticed that the climate into which we had come in the north-west corner of the lake was distinctly warmer than that of the other parts. We remembered the Soudan, towards which our faces were set, and knew that in the heat there we should think longingly of the waterside, in spite of all the worries inseparable from travelling in Abyssinia.