CHAPTER XVI.
SEMLIKI VALLEY AND KAVALLI'S COUNTRY.
Leaving this country with regret, I descended into the valley once more and marched north, crossing the Semliki to avoid the swamps mentioned by Colonel Lugard at the westerly bend of the river, and recrossed about six miles from where the river enters the lake. For some distance the mournful monotony of aloe and euphorbia is broken by groves of the stately borassus palm. The few miserable Wanyoro, who are sparsely scattered over the plain, were absolutely destitute. The prolonged drought had dried up the maize and millet, and the beans, which form their main food supply, were finished, so that three hippo that I killed for them raised me to a giddy pinnacle of fame; my tent became, for the time being, a second Lourdes, droves of pilgrims pouring in to pay homage to my .303. Their astonishment, when I showed them the size of the bullet and how the magazine worked, was most ludicrous. They had heard how it would drop a huge elephant without a wriggle of his trunk, and they had heard the three shots and could see the three hippo tied to the bank, and had imagined, I suppose, that it was a sort of 7-pounder; so that when they held a cartridge with its pencil-like bullet in their hand, and the truth gradually dawned on them, they would drop it like a hot potato. Some, when I started the mechanism, fairly took to their heels. A native's estimate of a gun varies proportionately with the size of the bore, and his idea of killing range is ten yards, or, if the sportsman is something of a marksman, perhaps twenty. I was fortunate in bringing off several shots at about four hundred to five hundred yards at nsunu,[#] and natives, having no unit of distance, consider everything from two hundred yards to about five miles as the same thing. I have several times heard my gun-bearer, Makanjira, who is a great admirer of the gun, solemnly explaining to an open-mouthed audience how he had seen me kill beasts at such a distance, pointing to a hill some three or four miles away. Consequently, its powers were magnified to the most prodigious proportions, and on the march excited natives would point to mere specks on the horizon, inform me they were buck, and expect me to kill them on the instant; they never gave me any of the credit--it was the gun, the wonderful gun, and I only obtained a reflected glory as its possessor. After crossing the river, I found the natives very nervous and suspicious, and though I visited the village near which I camped, and induced the chief to come to the river-bank to see one of the hippo, which I told him he might have, the following morning, on sending for a guide, I found that they had "shot the moon," carrying off their half-dozen miserable goats, and fled into the bush.
[#] Nsunu: Cobus Thomasi.
As the guide promised me by the chief on the other side was not forthcoming, and not wishing to delay any longer, as the sun was terrible on these arid plains, I started without one, and, after two hours' walking, found that I had penetrated well into the marshes at the south end of the lake. In trying to skirt round the arm of water and sudd that stretches to the south, we soon found ourselves in an apparently boundless sea of one of Nature's truly African inventions, a tall grass, 8 to 10 ft. high, the roots forming a hopeless tangle of matted whipcord reaching 2 ft. from the ground, and effectually hiding the honeycomb of old hippo and elephant-holes 2 ft. deep below, while the stems and leaves are covered with myriads of invisible spines, which detach themselves in one's skin and clothes, and set up the most intense irritation.
After floundering through this sea of misery for a couple of hours, we were extricated by the promised guide, who had followed on our tracks, and eventually arrived at a miserable patch of huts; we came so unexpectedly on the people that they had not time to fly, and a few explanations soon put them at their ease. I found that they were Wanyabuga, the same people who were so friendly to Lugard and belonged to Katonzi, a nominal vassal of Kasagama's, and who is now the sole survivor of Lugard's three blood brothers, Katonzi, Kavalli, and Mugenzi. They do not cultivate, but depend on the Balegga and Wakoba for grain, which they barter for fish and salt. They are quite distinct in appearance from the surrounding tribes. The type is a tall (5 ft. 8 in.), large-limbed, square-shouldered negro, bull-necked, bullet-headed, with a very low forehead and coarse features; colour very dark; but they have a jolly expression, and were some of the pleasantest natives I ever dealt with. It was curious to see even amongst these people, who live a life apart from their surroundings, the occasional delicate features, gazelle-like eyes, light colour, lithe limbs, and genteel nonchalance of the Galla influence.
At the south end of the Albert Edward, where the Rutchuru flows into the lake, forming similar marshes to those of the Semliki, there is a people living exactly the same life. Unfortunately, owing to their extreme shyness, I could find out very little about them, but from their mode of life, methods of fishing, and general appearance, I have no doubt that they are closely allied; probably survivors of former inhabitants who have found a last refuge in these intricate waterways and impenetrable marshes. The similarity in the names of these two peoples is significant.
It is a strange amphibious existence in these simmering wastes of weed and water, the stillness of which is only broken by the occasional blow of a hippo, the splash of a fish or crocodile, the wild cry of the numerous flights of wild-fowl, and the everlasting plaint of the fish-eagle. A perpetual mirage hovering over the scene adds to the general mystery; groups of huts suddenly appear where all was shimmering light, and as suddenly vanish; a canoe with its two upright punters glides past apparently in the sky, a goose suddenly assumes the proportions of an elephant, and an elephant evolves out of what one took to be a goose; and thus the scene is ever changing, till the grey of evening and the crisp light of the rising sun bring out in strong relief the placid sheets of water, the long brown bands of weeds, the tiny islands with their little huts perched among the waving reeds, the thin strips of sand with their occasional waddling hippo, the little black canoes slowly gliding in and out amongst the weed-beds and tufts of grass, and the continual flight of flocks of white ibis.
I never tired of sitting on the shore and watching the long string of little black canoes slowly wending their way towards me, bringing in fish and salt, to trade with the group of Balegga who were waiting with loads of beans and millet flour.
The small stretch of country lying between the Semliki, the Albert Lake, and the hills is called Kitwakimbi, and is distinct from Bukande, which begins at the foot of the hills and reaches back to the watershed.