176 A SAIL UPON THE ALBERT LAKE.

very little—are devoted to the extraction and preparation of salt. This constitutes an important industry in Kibiro, which supplies with salt not only all the northern parts of Unyoro as far as Mrah, but also most districts of Uganda and the Lur and Shuli countries. ‘The salt deposits of Kibiro, therefore, constitute one of the most valuable portions of Kabréga’s dominions. In the recent war between Uganda and Unyoro, the Waganda, before their defeat, demanded a very large quantity of salt (it is said 1000 loads), together with a large supply of ivory, as blackmail, to abstain from war.

We paid a visit to the principal centre of the salt preparation, which lay only about ten minutes east of our anchorage. Proceeding northwards along the lake shore, we could not help noticing the artificial landing-places made by the native fishermen for the protection of their boats, by building up walls of stone and carrying them a little distance into the shallow lake. These stone walls are the favourite resting-places of numbers of black-crested wagtails (Motacilla vidua), and occasionally a grave meditative Scopus wmbretia also takes up his station there. A short distance farther on we crossed the brook that comes from the hot springs; its waters are dammed up so that they only reach the lake by a thin trickling stream; the wind and waves, in fact, often-pile up the sand across its mouth in such quantities as to close it up completely. From this point the lake shore trends away in a wide curve; it is everywhere flat, and in certain places thick patches of rushes were in full bloom. Here I secured a specimen of the true western Hyphantica erythrops, one of the greatest rareties in our own district. The strand vegetation is extremely poor, consisting only of reeds, Aristida, Calotropis, Datura, and Solanum.

After passing the last settlement, we struck inland. Here the ground rises in a couple of terrace-like steps, the edges of which consist of clayey soil of a reddish colour, intermingled with plant detritus and some snail-shells. These terraces, therefore, are alluvial in character, the strand being now in process of formation; the upper terrace, the edge of which lies thirty feet above the level of the lake, is, of course, the older, and the lower owes its origin to the detritus washed down from