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Updated: June 19, 2025
Baraka was not allowed to go on to him and acquaint him of our proximity, and the Waganda were so much disliked in Unyoro, that there seemed no hopes of our ever being able to communicate by letter. To add to my embarrassments, Grant had not been able to survey the lake from Kitangule, nor had Usoga and the eastern side of the lake been seen. 15th.
To try him, I then asked for leave to go to Usoga, as Grant was so far off; but he said, "No, wait until he comes, and you shall both go together then; you fancy he is far off, but I know better. One of my men saw him coming along carried on a stretcher." I said, "No; that must be a mistake, for he told me by letter he would come by water."
Of course this man carried everything his own way, for there was nobody able to contradict him, and we could not afford time to visit Usoga first, lest by the delay we might lose an opportunity of communicating with Petherick. Grant now took a portrait of Mtesa by royal permission, the king sitting as quietly as his impatient nature would permit.
And as nobody would do anything for me without Kasoro's orders, I amused the people by firing at the ferry-boat upon the Usoga side, which they defied me to hit, the distance being 500 yards; but nevertheless a bullet went through her, and was afterwards brought by the Wasoga nicely folded up in a piece of mbugu.
Kamrasi had heard of my shooting with Mtesa, as also of the attempt made by Mabruki and Uledi to reach Gani via Usoga. He had received my present of beads from Baraka, and, in addition, took Uledi's sword, saying, "If you do not wish to part with it, you must remain a prisoner in my country all your life, for you have not paid your footing."
A basket of fruit, like Indian loquots, was then ordered in, and we ate them together, holding a discussion about Grant and Petherick, which ended by the king promising to send an officer by water to Kitangule, and another with two of my men, via Usoga and Kidi, to Gani; but as it was necessary my men should go in disguise, I asked the king to send me four mbugu and two spears; when, with the liberality of a great king, he sent me twenty sheets of the former, four spears, and a load of sun-dried fish strung on a stick in shape of a shield.
Pombe, the best in Uganda, was then drunk by the queen, and handed to me and to all the high officers about her, when she smoked her pipe, and bade me smoke mine. The musicians, dressed in long-haired Usoga goat-skins, were now ordered to strike up, which they did, with their bodies swaying or dancing like bears in a fair.
They were led by an officer, who, standing like a captain before his company, ordered them to jump and praise the king, acting the part of fugleman himself. Then said the king, turning to me, "Did I not tell you I had sent many men to fight? These are some of my army returned; the rest are coming, and will eventually, when all are collected, go in a body to fight in Usoga."
It was agreed to, and all seemed well; for there was much left to be done in Uganda and Usoga, if we could only make sure of communicating once with Petherick.
It was from his mouth, on our former visit to Kaze, that I first heard of the N'yanza, or, as he called it, the Ukerewe Sea; and then, too, I first proposed that we should go to it instead of journeying westward to the smaller waters of Ujiji. He had travelled up its western flank to Kibuga, the capital of the kingdom of Uganda, and had in his employ men who had lived and traded in Usoga.
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