trying to do; and more especially so when I told him that if he would assist me in trying to communicate with Petherick, the latter would either come here himself, or send one of his men, conveying a suitable present, while I was away in Uganda, and then, in the end, we would all go off to Kamrasi's together.

4th. Entering warmly into the spirit of this important intelligence, Rumanika inquired into its truth, and, finding no reason to doubt it, said he would send some men back with Kamrasi's men, if I could have patience until they were ready to go. There would be no danger, as Kamrasi was his brother-in-law, and would do all that he told him.

I now proposed to send Baraka, who, ashamed to cry off, said he would go with Rumanika's officers if I allowed him a companion of his own choosing, who would take care of him if he got sick on the way, otherwise he should be afraid they would leave him to die, like a dog, in the jungles. We consoled him by assenting to the companion he wished, and making Rumanika responsible that no harm should come to him from any of the risks which his imagination conjured up. Rumanika then gave him and Ulédi, his selected companion, some sheets of mbugu, in order that they might disguise themselves as his officers while crossing the territories of the King of Uganda. On inquiring as to the reason of this, it transpired that, to reach Unyoro, the party would have to cross a portion of Uddu, which the late king Sunna, on annexing that country to Uganda, had divided, not in halves, but by alternate bands running transversely from Nkolé to the Victoria N'yanza.

5th and 6th. To keep Rumanika up to the mark, I introduced to him Saidi, one of my men, who was formerly a slave, captured in Walâmo, on the borders of Abyssinia, to show him, by his similarity to the Wahŭma, how it was I had come to the conclusion that he was of the same race. Saidi told him his tribe kept cattle with the same stupendous horns as those of the Wahuma; and also that, in the same manner, they all mixed blood with milk for their dinners, which, to his mind, confirmed my statement. At night, as there was a partial eclipse of the moon, all the Wangăana marched up and down from Rumanika's to Nnanaji's huts, singing and beating our tin cooking-pots to frighten off the spirit of the sun from consuming entirely the chief object of reverence, the moon.

7th. Our spirits were now farther raised by the arrival of a

semi-Hindu-Sŭahili, named Juma, who had just returned from a visit to the King of Uganda, bringing back with him a large present of ivory and slaves; for he said he had heard from the king of our intention to visit him, and that he had dispatched officers to call us immediately. This intelligence delighted Rŭmanika as much as it did us, and he no sooner heard it than he said, with ecstasies, “I will open Africa, since the white men desire it; for did not Dagara command us to show deference to strangers?" Then, turning to me, he added, "My only regret is, you will not take something as a return for the great expenses you have been put to in coming to visit me." The expense was admitted, for I had now been obliged to purchase from the Arabs upward of £400 worth of beads, to keep such a store in reserve for my return from Uganda as would enable me to push on to Gondokoro. I thought this necessary, as every report that arrived from Unyamuézi only told us of farther disasters with the merchants in that country. Sheikh Said was there even then with my poor Hottentots, unable to convey my post to the coast.

8th to 10th. At last we heard the familiar sound of the Uganda drum. Maŭla, a royal officer, with a large escort of smartlydressed men, women, and boys, leading their dogs and playing their reeds, announced to our straining ears the welcome intelligence that their king had sent them to call us. N'yamgundu, who had seen us in Usui, had marched on to inform the king of our advance and desire to see him, and he, intensely delighted at the prospect of having white men for his guests, desired no time should be lost in our coming on. Maŭla told us that his officers had orders to supply us with every thing we wanted while passing through his country, and that there would be nothing to pay.

One thing only now embarrassed me-Grant was worse, without hope of recovery for at least one or two months. This large body of Waganda could not be kept waiting. To get on as fast as possible was the only chance of ever bringing the journey to a successful issue; so, unable to help myself, with great remorse at another separation, on the following day I consigned my companion, with several Wanguana, to the care of my friend Rumanika. I then separated ten loads of beads and thirty copper wires for my expenses in Uganda; wrote a letter to Petherick, which I gave to Baraka; and gave him and his companion beads to last as money for six months, and also a present both for Kamrasi and the Gani chief. To Nsangéz I gave charge of my collections in natural

history, and the reports of my progress, addressed to the Geographical Society, which he was to convey to Sheikh Said at Kazé, for conveyance as far as Zanzibar.

This business concluded in camp, I started my men and went to the palace to bid adieu to Rŭmanika, who appointed Rozaro, one of his officers, to accompany me wherever I went in Uganda, and to bring me back safely again. At Rumanika's request, I then gave Mtésa's pages some ammunition to hurry on with to the great king of Uganda, as his majesty had ordered them to bring him, as quickly as possible, some strengthening powder, and also some powder for his gun. Then, finally, to Maŭla, also under Rămanika's instructions, I gave two copper wires and five bundles of beads; and, when all was completed, set out on the march, perfectly sure in my mind that before very long I should settle the great Nile problem forever; and, with this consciousness, only hoping that Grant would be able to join me before I should have to return again, for it was never supposed for a moment that it was possible I ever could go north from Uganda. Rumanika was the most resolute in this belief, as the kings of Uganda, ever since that country was detached from Unyoro, had been making constant raids, seizing cattle and slaves from the surrounding countries.

CHAPTER IX.

HISTORY OF THE WAHŬMA.

The Abyssinians and Gallas.-Theory of Conquest of inferior by superior Races.— The Wahuma and the Kingdom of Kittara.-Legendary History of the Kingdom of Uganda.—Its Constitution, and the Ceremonials of the Court.

THE reader has now had my experience of several of the minor states, and has presently to be introduced to Uganda, the most powerful state in the ancient but now divided great kingdom of Kittara. I shall have to record a residence of considerable duration at the court there; and, before entering on it, I propose to state my theory of the ethnology of that part of Africa inhabited by the people collectively styled Wahŭma, otherwise Gallas or Abyssinians. My theory is founded on the traditions of the several nations, as checked by my own observation of what I saw when passing through them. It appears impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance of the Wahŭma, that they can be of any other race than the semi-Shem-Hamitic of Ethiopia. The traditions of the imperial government of Abyssinia go as far back as the scriptural age of King David, from whom the late reigning king of Abyssinia, Sahéla Sélassié, traced his descent.

Most people appear to regard the Abyssinians as a different race from the Gallas, but, I believe, without foundation. Both alike are Christians of the greatest antiquity. It is true that, while the aboriginal Abyssinians in Abyssinia proper are more commonly agriculturists, the Gallas are chiefly a pastoral people; but I conceive that the two may have had the same relations with each other which I found the Wahuma kings and Wahŭma herdsmen holding with the agricultural Wazinza in Uzinza, the Wanyambo in Karagué, the Waganda in Uganda, and the Wanyoro in Unyoro.

In these countries the government is in the hands of foreigners, who had invaded and taken possession of them, leaving the agricultural aborigines to till the ground, while the junior members of the usurping clans herded cattle-just as in Abyssinia, or wherever the Abyssinians or Gallas have shown themselves. There a

Q

pastoral clan from the Asiatic side took the government of Abyssinia from its people and have ruled over them ever since, changing, by intermarriage with the Africans, the texture of their hair and color to a certain extent, but still maintaining a high stamp of Asiatic feature, of which a marked characteristic is a bridged instead of bridgeless nose.

It may be presumed that there once existed a foreign but compact government in Abyssinia, which, becoming great and powerful, sent out armies on all sides of it, especially to the south, southeast, and west, slave-hunting and devastating wherever they went, and in process of time becoming too great for one ruler to control. Junior members of the royal family then, pushing their fortunes, dismembered themselves from the parent stock, created separate governments, and, for reasons which can not be traced, changed their names. In this manner we may suppose that the Gallas separated from the Abyssinians, and located themselves to the south of their native land.

Other Abyssinians, or possibly Gallas-it matters not which they were or what we call them-likewise detaching themselves, fought in the Somali country, subjugated that land, were defeated to a certain extent by the Arabs from the opposite continent, and tried their hands south as far as the Jub River, where they also left many of their numbers behind. Again they attacked Omwita (the present Mombas), were repulsed, were lost sight of in the interior of the continent, and, crossing the Nile close to its source, discovered the rich pasture-lands of Unyoro, and founded the great kingdom of Kittara, where they lost their religion, forgot their language, extracted their lower incisors like the natives, changed their national name to Wahuma, and no longer remembered the names of Hubshi or Galla, though even the present reigning kings retain a singular traditional account of their having once been half white and half black, with hair on the white side straight, and on the black side frizzly. It was a curious indication of the prevailing idea still entertained by them of their foreign extraction, that it was surmised in Unyoro that the approach of us white men into their country from both sides at once augured an intention on our part to take back the country from them. Believing, as they do, that Africa formerly belonged to Europeans, from whom it was taken by negroes with whom they had allied themselves, the Wahŭma make themselves a small residue of the original European stock driven from the land; an idea