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The islands, each swelling in a gentle slope to a rounded summit, clothed with wood between the rugged angular closely-cropping rocks of granite, seemed mirrored in the calm surface of the lake; on which I here and there detected a small black speck, the tiny canoe of some Muanza fisherman.
Unlike the Indian mosquito, they are of a light dun-brown colour. The Muanza dogs are the largest that I have yet seen in Africa, and still are not more than twenty inches high; but Mahaya says the Ukerewe dog is a fine animal, and quite different from any on the mainland.
Then the day came only a month or so after that our troops marched into Muanza. The main body of its German defenders had steamed away down that land-locked sound of theirs a little while before. We had not stormed the place from the lake after all, we had arrived by a back-door road among the kopjes. Yet there we were at last.
After descending the hill, we followed along the borders of the lake, and at first entered Mahaya's Palace, when the absence of boats arousing my suspicions, made me inquire where the Arabs, on coming to Muanza, and wishing to visit Ukerewe, usually resided.
It only had 'Muanza' graved upon it, 'Muanza' and the date of that August evening. No, I gave it up. So he told me his version of events. 'There was a dhow beating round the corner of an island. The Goanese skipper had no idea that you were there. It was a near thing. He was lucky, wasn't he, that the alarm of the light seen by your watch came just then?
If we'd only gone in straight where Her light showed, we might have found our luck. 'You mean we might have captured Muanza, I suppose, I said rather skeptically. 'Well, we might have killed a lot of Germans, sir, and done a lot of good. But our captain's too cautious altogether. 'It's possible, I said. 'She may have meant to give us the tip, he went on.
To proceed to Unyanyembe, receive his caravan, enlist men, and try to join Sir Samuel Baker, either by going to Muanza, and sailing through Ukerewe or Victoria N'Yanza in my boats which I should put up to Mtesa's palace at Uganda, thus passing by Mirambo and Swaruru of Usui, who would rob him if he took the usual caravan road to Uganda; thence from Mtesa to Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, where he would of course hear of the great white man who was said to be with a large force of men at Gondokoro.
When Sheikh Snay told us of the Ukerewe, as he called the N'yanza, on our first arrival at Kaze, proceeding westward from Zanzibar, he said, "If you have come only to see a large bit of water, you had better go northwards and see the Ukerewe; for it is much greater in every respect than the Tanganyika;" and so, as far as I can ascertain, it is. Muanza, our journey's end, now lay at our feet.
Sultan Mahaya sent a messenger to say that he was hurt at the cavalier manner in which I treated him yesterday; and, to show his wounded feelings, gave an order to his subjects that no man should supply me with provisions, or render me any assistance during my sojourn at Muanza.
"The islands, each swelling in a gentle slope to a rounded summit clothed with wood, between the rugged, angular, closely-cropping rocks of granite, seen mirrored in the calm surface of the lake, on which is here and there detected the a small black speck the tiny canoe of some Muanza fisherman.
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