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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Had they not," it was said, "heard of Budja's telling Mtesa that K'yengo's children prevented the white men from returning to Uganda? and since then Mtesa had killed his frontier officer for being chicken-hearted, afraid to carry out his orders, and had appointed another in his stead, giving him strict orders to make prisoners of all foreigners who might pass that way; and, further, when some twenty Wanyoro were going to Karague, they were hunted down by Mtesa's orders, and three of their number killed; for he was determined to cut off all intercourse between this country and Karague.
He would not take any of my men with him to fetch the kit from Karague, as Mtesa, he said, had given him orders to find all the means of transport; so I gave him a letter to Grant, and told him to look sharp, else Grant would have passed the Kitangule before he arrived there.
As the presents given yesterday occupied the king's mind too much for other business, I now sent to offer him one-third of the guns left in Uganda, provided he would send some messengers with one of my men to ask Mtesa for them, and also the same proportion of the sixty loads of property left in charge of Rumanika at Karague, if he would send the requisite number of porters for its removal.
Before us now lay a wilderness of five marches' duration, as the few villages that once lined it had all been depopulated by the Sorombo people and the Watuta. We therefore had to lay in rations for those days, and as no men could be found who would take service to Karague, we filled up our complement with men at exorbitant wages to carry our things on to Usui.
I began conversation with a speech of courtesy, explaining how I had left my brother Grant and my great friend Rumanika at Karague hastening, in compliance with the invitation of the king, to visit him and herself, with the full hope of making friends in Uganda; but now I had come, I was greatly disappointed; for I neither saw half enough of their majesties, nor did any of their officers ever call upon me to converse and pass away the dreary hours.
I gave way, thinking it prudent to do so, but resolved in my mind I would get Grant to see it in boats on his voyage from Karague. There were not guinea-fowls to be found here, nor a fowl, in any of the huts, so I requested Rozaro to hurry off to Mtesa, and ask him to send me something to eat. He simply laughed at my request, and said I did not know what I was doing.
It is the same piece of water we heard of in Karague as the Little Luta Nzige, beyond Utumbi; and the same story of Unyoro being an island circumscribed by it and the Victoria N'yanza connected by the Nile, is related here, showing that both the Karague and Unyoro people, as indeed all negroes and Arabs, have the common defect in their language, of using the same word for a peninsula and an island.
At my request, Mahaya assembled all his principal men, and we went into a discussion about the lake; but not a soul knew anything about its northern extremity, although people had sometimes travelled in canoes, coasting along its shores by the Karague district to as far, I believe, as the Line.
Go and fetch them this moment, and pombe too, for Bana." The subject then turned on the plan I had formed of going to Gani by water, and of sending Grant to Karague by the lake; but the king's mind was fully occupied with the compass I had given him. He required me to explain its use, and then broke up the meeting. 4th.
On the 24th, we all, as many as were left of us, marched into the merchant's depot, S. lat. 5 deg. 0' 52", and E. long. 33 deg. 1' 34", escorted by Musa, who advanced to meet us, and guided us into his tembe, where he begged we would reside with him until we could find men to carry our property on to Karague.
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