"Like water flung from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide,"
while the rain dashed down in sheets of water, one single gust of which would drench you to the skin. But our train is an effective shelter. We dine comfortably in the midst of the tempest, and afterwards in a cooler atmosphere look up towards repentant stars and a tear-stained sky.
At dawn we are at Kisumu. There is a stir of men, a crowded platform, soldiers in order, groups of Indian traders, hundreds of Kavirondo natives in their fullest undress, bunting, and introductions. Large white steamers lie alongside the jetty, and beyond these the waters of the Lake gleam their broad welcome to the sunrise. Kisumu, or Port Florence as it is sometimes called, is the western terminus of the Uganda Railway and the chief port on Lake Victoria. It possesses what I am told is the highest dockyard in the world, and is the place at which all the steamers now plying on the Lake have been put together. One eight-hundred-ton cargo boat is actually in process of construction, and will be launched in a few months' time to meet the growing traffic of the Nyanza. The station itself is pretty; its trim houses and shady trees, backed against the hills, overlook the wide expanse of Kavirondo Bay and its encircling promontories. Unluckily, it is unhealthy, for the climate is depressing and the sewage accumulates in the tideless and shallow inlet. Some day one of two things will happen: either the waters of the Victoria Nyanza will be raised by a dam across the Ripon Falls and Kavirondo Bay will be proportionately deepened and cleansed, or the railway will be deflected and prolonged to its natural terminus on the deep waters of the lake at Port Victoria.
The Kavirondo tribe, the greatest in this part of the country, had organized an imposing demonstration. In dense array they lined the road from the station to the Commissioner's house, and our party walked through their midst in a perfect hubbub of horns and drums and shrill salutations. All the warriors carried their spears, shields, and war-paint, and most of them wore splendid plumes of ostrich feathers. The Kavirondo are naked and unashamed. Both sexes are accustomed to walk about in the primitive simplicity of Nature. Their nudity is based not upon mere ignorance but reasoned policy. They have a very strong prejudice against the wearing of clothes, which they declare lead to immorality; and no Kavirondo woman can attire herself even in the most exiguous raiment without sullying her reputation. They are said to be the most moral of all the tribes dwelling on the Lake shore. It is a pity that Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, of the University of Weissnichtwo, did not meet them in his rugged wanderings, for they would surely have enabled him to add another page to his monumental work on the functions of the tailor.
Nandi and Kavirondo Warriors at Kisumu.
I wake up the next morning to find myself afloat on a magnificent ship. Its long and spacious decks are as snowy as those of a pleasure yacht. It is equipped with baths, electric light, and all modern necessities. There is an excellent table, also a well-selected library. Smart bluejackets—with ebon faces—are polishing the brasswork; dapper, white-clad British naval officers pace the bridge. We are steaming ten miles an hour across an immense sea of fresh water as big as Scotland, and uplifted higher than the summit of Ben Nevis. At times we are in a complete circle of lake and sky, without a sign of land. At others we skirt lofty coasts covered with forest and crowned with distant blue-brown mountains, or thread our course between a multitude of beautiful islands. The air is cool and fresh, the scenery splendid. We might be yachting off the coast of Cornwall in July. We are upon the Equator, in the heart of Africa, and crossing the Victoria Nyanza, four thousand feet above the sea!