arguments all rested the other way ;—that no one could
tell what was ahead of him—Bana had sold himself to
luck and the devil—but though he did not care for his
own safety, he ought not to sacrifice the lives of others—
Bombay and his lot were fools for their pains in trusting
to him.
3d.—At daybreak Riimanika sent us word he was off
to Moga-Namirinzi, a spur of a hill beyond “ the Little
Windermere/’ overlooking the Ingdzi Kagffia, or river
which separates Kishakka from Karagiffi, to show me how
the Kitangule river was fed by small lakes and marshes,
in accordance with my expressed wish to have a better
comprehension of the drainage system of the Mountains
of the Moon. He hoped we would follow him, not by
the land route he intended to take, but in canoes which
he had ordered at the ferry below. Starting off shortly
afterwards, I made for the lake, and found the canoes all
ready, but so small that, besides two paddlers, only two
men could sit down in each. After pushing through the
tall reeds with which the end of the lake is covered, we
emerged in the clear open, and skirted the farther side of
the water until a small strait was gained, which led us
into another lake, drained at the northern end into a vast
swampy plain, covered entirely with tall rushes, excepting
only in a few places where bald patches expose the surface
of the water, or where the main streams of the Ingezi and
Luehuro valleys cut a clear drain for themselves.
The whole scenery was most beautiful. Green and
fresh, the slopes of the hills were covered with grass, with
small clumps of soft cloudy-looking acacias growing at a
few feet only above the water, and above them, facing
over the hills, fine detached trees, and here and there the
gigantic medicinal aloe. Arrived near the end of the
Moga-Namirinzi hill in the second lake, the paddlers
splashed into shore, where a large concourse of people,
headed by Nnanaji, were drawn up to receive me. I
landed with all the dignity of a prince, when the royal
band struck up a march, and we all moved on to Rii-
manika’s frontier palace, talking away in a very complimentary
manner, not unlike the very polite and flowery
fashion of educated Orientals.
Riimanika we found sitting dressed in a wrapper made
of an nzoe antelope’s skin, smiling blandly as we approached
him. In the warmest manner possible he
pressed me to sit by his side, asked how I had enjoyed
myself, what I thought of his country, and if I did not
feel hungry; when a pic-nic dinner was spread, and we
all set to at cooked plantains and pombe, ending with a
pipe of his best tobacco. Bit by bit Riimanika became
more interested in geography, and seemed highly ambitious
of gaining a world-wide reputation through the
medium of my pen. At his invitation we now crossed
over the spur to the Ingezi Kagera side, when, to surprise
me, the canoes 1 had come up the lake in appeared before
us. They had gone out of the lake at its northern end,
paddled into, and then up the Kagera to where we stood,
showing, by actual navigation, the connection of these
highland lakes with the rivers which drain the various
spurs of the Mountains of the Moon. The Kagera was
deep and dark, of itself a very fine stream, and, considering
it was only one—and that, too, a minor one—of the
various affluents which dram the mountain valleys into
the Victoria N’yanza through the medium of the Kitan-
giiffi river, I saw at once there must be water sufficient to
make the Kitangiile a very powerful tributary to the lake.
On leaving this interesting place, with the widespread
information of all the surrounding countries I had gained,
my mind was so impressed with the topographical features
of all this part of Africa, that in my heart I resolved I
would make Riimanika as happy as he had made me, and
asked K’yengo, his doctor, of all things I possessed what
the king would like best. To my surprise I then learnt