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Updated: May 1, 2025
Returning home to the tents as the evening sky was illumined with the red glare of the sun, my attention was attracted by observing in the distance some bold sky-scraping cones situated in the country Ruanda, which at once brought back to recollection the ill-defined story I had heard from the Arabs of a wonderful hill always covered with clouds, on which snow or hail was constantly falling.
I fell in with Louis Franck, the Belgian Minister of the Colonies, to whom I had a letter of introduction, and who was making a tour of inspection of the Congo. He had landed at Mombassa, crossed British East Africa, visited the new Belgian possessions of Urundi and Ruanda which are spoils of war, and made his way to Kabalo from Lake Tanganyika.
Musa said this hill was in Ruanda, a much larger country than Urundi; and further, both men said, as they had said before, that the lands of Usoga and Unyoro were islands, being surrounded by water; and a salt lake, which was called N'yanza, though not the great Victoria N'yanza lay on the other said of the Unyoro, from which direction Rumanika, king of Karague, sometimes got beads forwarded to him by Kamrasi, king of Unyoro, of a different sort from any brought from Zanzibar.
That well-known traveller has drawn his lake far into the territory of the Warundi, while Ruanda has been placed on the eastern side; whereas a large portion of it, if not all, should be placed north of what he has designated on his map as Usige.
4th. To proceed to Unyanyembe, receive his caravan, enlist men, and return to Ujiji, and back to Manyuema by way of Uguhha. 5th. To proceed by way of the Rusizi through Ruanda, and so on to Itara, Unyoro, and Baker. For either course, whichever he thought most expedient, I and my men would assist him as escort and carriers, to the best of our ability.
Formerly Unyoro, Uganda, and Uddhu were all united in one vast kingdom called Kittara, but this name is now only applied to certain portions of that kingdom. "Nothing is known of the Mountains of the Moon to the westward of Ruanda. In Unyoro the king will feed you; beyond that I suspect you will have to buy food with beads."
Direct north of Urundi is Ruanda; also a very large country. The Rusizi River according to Ruhinga rose near a lake called Kivo, which he said is as long as from Mugihawa to Mugere, and as broad as from Mugihewa to Warumashanya's country, or, say eighteen miles in length by about eight in breadth.
"'Baroondi' must be Speke's 'Urundi; as I find that many names that he has prefixed with 'U' are here pronounced as 'B. "By Speke's map Urundi is in about 3 degrees south latitude. The M'wootan N'zige is therefore known to pass through Ruanda, Baroondi, and the Watuta or beyond the north end of the Tanganyika Lake.
Commencing from the western bank of the Rusizi, to the extreme north-western head of the lake, was Mugihewa Ruhinga's country. 5th. From Uvira on the west, running north past Mugihewa, and overlapping it on the north side as far as the hills of Chamati, was Ruwenga, also a country governed by Mukamba. Beyond Ruwenga, from the hills of Chamati to the Ruanda River, was the country of Chamati.
12th. On visiting Rumanika again, and going through my geographical lessons, he told me, in confirmation of Musa's old stories, that in Ruanda there existed pigmies who lived in trees, but occasionally came down at night, and, listening at the hut doors of the men, would wait until they heard the name of one of its inmates, when they would call him out, and, firing an arrow into his heart, disappear again in the same way as they came.
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