CAIRO TO KISUMU of twenty-six hundred miles, extending to Livingstone near Victoria Falls in northern Rhodesia. We shall follow, in a general way, the Blue Nile to Ehri, and then go almost due south to Uganda and Lake Victoria, the second largest lake of the world. We shall skirt the eastern edge of the Sudd, in which there is hardly a single safe landing place. Except in the main channels, masses of papyrus completely hide the water, and if we should come down in that treacherous region we could hardly hope to get out alive. We should be unable to walk, swim, or float in the dense tangle.

This second leg of our journey takes us into the heart of Africa. The country is wooded and mountainous.

It is very hot, for we are nearing the Equator, which cuts across the upper edge of Lake Victoria. In fact, our pilot will not fly after nine in the morning nor earlier than four o’clock in the afternoon. The air is more “bumpy,” and often terrific thunderstorms seem to fill the sky with sheets of water. In dodging these storms, we must be careful not to fly so far off our course as to be forced to land in the wilds. The country here is a mile or more above sea level, and if we should fly too high in order to avoid the heat gusts, we may have trouble with our engines in the rarefied air. Below us are dense forests and rocky hillsides, and natural landing places hardly exist. As we go down the eastern shore of Lake Victoria we see new sights. These are the water-spouts, great spiral columns whirled up from the lake into the air by the eddying winds.

Our route from Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, is to the southwest, and we land at Mwanza, on the south shore. This is one of the outposts of the white man’s civilization 162