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Eight days were passed at Vacovia before we could obtain boats, which, when they did come, proved to be mere trees neatly hollowed out in the shape of canoes. At last we were under way, and day after day we journeyed along the shore of the lake, stopping occasionally at small villages, and being delayed now and then by deserting boatmen.
It was hard work for me; but for my unfortunate wife, who had hardly recovered from her attack of coup de soleil, such hardships were most distressing. On the thirteenth day from Vacovia we found ourselves at the end of our lake voyage. The lake at this point was between fifteen and twenty miles across, and the appearance of the country to the north was that of a delta.
I started off Rabonga, to Magungo, where he was to meet us with riding oxen. We were encamped at a small village on the shore of the lake, called Vacovia. On the following morning not one of our party could rise from the ground. Thirteen men, the boy Saat, four women, besides my wife and me, were all down with fever. The natives assured us that all strangers suffered in a like manner.
Notwithstanding my daily entreaties that boats might be supplied without delay, eight days were passed at Vacovia, during which time the whole party suffered more or less from fever. At length canoes were reported to have arrived, and I was requested to inspect them. They were merely single trees neatly hollowed out, but very inferior in size to the large canoes on the Nile at M'rooli.
There was no excitement in Vacovia, and the chief and two or three attendants were all who came to see us off; they had a suspicion that bystanders might be invited to assist as rowers, therefore the entire population of the village had deserted.
Having purchased with some difficulty a few fowls and dried fish, I put the greater number of my men in the larger canoe; and with Richarn, Saat, and the women, including the interpreter Bacheeta, we led the way, and started from Vacovia on the broad surface of the Albert N'yanza. The rowers paddled bravely; and the canoe, although heavily laden, went along at about four miles an hour.
Both the guide and the chief of Vacovia informed me that we should be taken by canoes to Magungo, to the point at which the Somerset that we had left at Karuma joined the lake; but that we could not ascend it, as it was a succession of cataracts the whole way from Karuma until within a short distance of Magungo.
Within a quarter of a mile of the lake was a fishing village named Vacovia, in which we now established ourselves.
The air was hot and close, and the country frightfully unhealthy. The natives assured us that all strangers suffered in a similar manner, and that no one could live at Vacovia without repeated attacks of fever.
We had heard voices for some time while obscured on the other side of the rushes, and we now found a number of natives, who had arrived to meet us, with the chief of Magungo and our guide Rabonga, whom we had sent in advance with the riding oxen from Vacovia. The water was extremely shallow near the shore, and the natives rushed in and dragged the canoes by sheer force over the mud to the land.
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