172 A SAIL UPON THE ALBERT LAKE.

hut I might choose, but I could find none that would suit me; so, early on the following morning, I begged Kagoro to havea hut and an awning constructed for me. This he at once promised to get done, although, owing to the scarcity of materials, it was a difficult task to accomplish. Late in the evening I received a sheep and twelve head of poultry as a present, together with the promise of more on the morrow —of course a promise ad calendas Grecas. One must, however, in such cases, rest content with the goodwill and the smooth words. We could not, indeed, expect the natives, who have themselves to buy all their necessaries of life from beyond the hills, to be particularly generous to strangers. Kibiro, the name of the Central African trading station before which our steamer lay, produces nothing but salt, and with this its inhabitants have to purchase even their firewood.

Along the lake shore runs a tolerably broad strip of sand, sometimes coarse, sometimes fine, spread over sharp-edged debris of stone, and in some places so thickly strewn with the yellowish shells of a species of small snail as to have a perfectly white appearance. These are the undeveloped outer coverings of two or three forms of which I had already gathered specimens. The bay is entirely surrounded by this girdle of sand; beyond it comes a belt of undergrowth on dunes, where grows a species of Aristida, that takes the place of bent grass (Elymus), and pricks in a most unpleasant manner. On the farther slopes of these dunes we crossed places in which the soil was swept quite bare; heaps of a scoured and finely pulverised kind of earth of a greyishyellow colour, patches in which the soil had been recently moistened, preparatory to being scratched up (for salt), little pools full of yellowish water, and walls of mud, along the foot of which stood rows of clay vessels ranged on stones placed at regular intervals, proved that the people here engage in some special extraction.

The steadings or hamlets of the inhabitants are scattered all along the low foot-hills, being separated from, one another by narrow and very dirty passages; on the whole, they suggest the idea of a tolerably dense population. Hach hamlet is surrounded by a reed hedge, often in a very defective con-