Though the people were shouting and dancing, and thronging around me with congratulations for having "hit the exact spot so well," a chill came over me, as I thought of the very slight chance there was, in such a country as this, of finding a canoe fit to navigate the rough waters of the Albert. With my glass I scrutinized anxiously the distant shore of the Lake, but I could not see any canoe, neither could I see a single tree in all the long stretch of slope and extended plain of a size suitable for a canoe, and the thought that, after all, our forced march and continual fighting and sacrifice of life would be in vain, struck me for the first time, even while upon every man's lips was the pious ejaculation, "Thank God." And yet it was just possible we might be able to buy a canoe with brass rods and some red cloth. It would be too hard if our long travels hither were to be quite in vain. The scene I looked upon was very different to what I had anticipated. I had circumnavigated the Victoria Nyanza and the Tanganika, and I had viewed the Muta Nzigé from a plateau somewhat similar to this, and canoes were procurable on either Lake; and on the Victoria and Tanganika it would not be difficult, after a little search, to find a tree large enough for cutting out a canoe. But I saw here about twenty miles of most barren slopes, rugged with great rocks, and furrowed with steep ravines and watercourses, whose banks showed a thin fringe of miserable bush, and between them were steeply descending sharp and long spurs, either covered with rocky and clayey débris or tall green grass. Between the base of this lengthy fall of slope and the Lake was a plain about five or six miles in breadth, and about twenty miles long, most pleasant to look upon from the great altitude we were on. It resembled a well-wooded park land, but the trees spread out their branches too broadly to possess the desirable stems. They appeared to me to be more like acacia, and thorn-trees and scrub, which would be utterly useless for our purpose. Our aneroids indicated an altitude of 5,000 feet. The islet marked on Mason's chart as near Kavalli bore E.S.E., magnetic, about six miles from our position. Laying Colonel Mason's chart of the Albert Nyanza before us, we compared it with what was spread so largely and grandly over 2,500 feet below us, and we were forced to bear witness to the remarkable accuracy of his survey. Here and there some trifling islets and two or three small inlets of the Lake into that singular sunken plain which formed the boundary of the Lake as its southerly extremity were observed as omissions.