duped. “ Gould this be Central Africa,” I asked
myself, “ wherein w e find such perfect adepts in
the art o f deception? But two days ago the
savagery o f the land was intense and real, for
e v e ry man’s hand was raised in ferocity against
the stranger. In the land next adjoining w e find
a people polite, agreeable, and professing the
warmest admiration for the stranger, but as
inhospitable as any hotel-keeper in London or
New Y o rk ' to a penniless gu e s t!”
A t a little village in the b a y o f Buka we
discovered we were premature in our judgment.
T h e Mtongoleh at this place invited us to his
village, spread out before us a feast o f new as
well as clotted milk, mellow and ripe bananas,
a kid, sweet potatoes, and eggs, and despatched
a messenger instantly to the Kabaka Mtesa to
announce the coming o f a stranger in the land,
declaring, at the same time, his intention not to
abandon us until he had brought us face to face
with the great monarch o f Equatorial Africa, in
whom, he smilingly assured us, w e should meet
a friend, and under whose protection we might
sleep secure.
W e halted one more day to enjoy the bounteous
fare o f the chief o f Buka. My admiration for
the land and the people steadily increased, for
I experienced w ith . each hour some pleasing
civility. T h e land was in fit accord with the
people, and few more interesting prospects could
rApril i, 1875.-1 , AN ADMIRABLE LAND.
L Buka. J
Africa furnish than that which lo v in g ly embraces
the b a y o f Buka. From the margin o f the lake,
lined b y waving water-cane, up to the highest
hill-top, all was verdure— o f varying shades.
The light green o f the elegant matete contrasted
with the deeper tints o f the various species o f
fig; the satin-sheeny fronds o f the graceful
plantains were overlapped b y clouds o f the pale
foliage o f the tamarind; while between and around
all, the young grass o f the pastured hill-sides
spread its emerald carpet. In free, b o ld , and
y e t graceful outline, the hills shut in the scene,
swelling upward in full dome-like contour, here
sweeping round to enclose within its hollow a
gorgeous plantain grove, there projecting boldly
into abrupt, steep headlands, and again receding
in a succession o f noble terraces into regions
as y e t unexplored b y the white man. One
village had a low p ebb ly beach , that ran in a
sinuous light-grey line between the darker g re y
faee o f the lake and the living perennial green
o f a banana plantation. I imagined myself fallen
into an estate which I had inherited b y right
divine and human, or at least I felt something
akin to that large feeling which heirs o f unencumbered
broad lands may be supposed to
feel, and attributed such an unusual feeling to
an attack o f perfect digestion,: and a free,
unclogged, and undisturbed liver.
On the 2nd A p r il we proceeded, in an amiable,