T HERE is something sinister and gloomy about the word "swamps," and no doubt the readers of this article will conjure up, as I did before I went there, a somewhat repellent picture of this particular African variety of swamp. They will probably connect it vaguely with the lonely death of David Livingstone in 1873 and add to that a general atmosphere of fever, hostile natives, crocodiles, and other unpleasantnesses to taste. For my part I had no excuse for gloomy anticipation, since immediately before going there I had had the advantage of meeting several white men who had found the swamps enchanting and would snap at a chance of fleeing to them away from the grind of official business. Nevertheless, I was quite prepared to discount the praises of these hearty young men in favor of hazard by disease or capsize, not to mention rude encounters with hippo or crocodile, when, on May 4, 1946, I found myself overlooking Lake Bangweulu from a low headland known as Mwamfuli halfway down its western shore. As guides and protectors I had Messrs. Brelsford and Clay, both District Commissioners of Northern Rhodesia, to whom the idea of a visit to their beloved swamp was pleasurable for any reason, but particularly so now that they, Oxford men, were to initiate a Cambridge professor into its mysteries.