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levee, which the king held every month by way of ascertaining how many of his subjects were loyal. In the first court was a horn of the magic powder stuck in the ground, with its mouth pointing in the direction of Rogéro. In the second were thirty-five drummers ranged behind thirty-five drums, and then the guests were ushered into the third enclosure by a knot of princes and officers, where they found Rumanika sitting on the ground in the principal hut. He wore a tiara of beads on his head, from the centre of which rose a plume of red feathers, and on his lower face was a large white artificial beard, set in a stock or band of beads. This was supposed to give dignity to the countenance, like the wigs worn by our judges. They were beckoned to squat by Nnanaji, the master of the ceremonies, and a large group of high officials outside the porch of the king's hut. Then the thirty-five drummers all struck up together in harmony, but with a deafening noise; and when this was over, a smaller band of hand-drums and reed instruments was ordered in to play. When this second performance ended, through the performers being out of breath, district officers advanced one by one, with strange gesticulations, and holding drumsticks or twigs in their hands; frantically swore loyalty and devotion to the king, adding the hope that he would cut off their heads if they ever turned from his enemies; and then, kneeling before him, held out their wands that he might touch them. This scene was constantly repeated, the salutations alternating with music, interrupted only once by a divertissement in which a number of girls danced a sort of Highland fling, and the day's ceremonies ended.

Nnanaji, the king's brother, was a sportsman, and one day invited Speke to go out shooting with him on the slopes of the hills overlooking the lake. The king's

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sons came with three or four dogs and a posse of beaters. They drove the covers as if they were well used to the sport; perhaps, indeed, they had driven them too well before, for that day nothing was seen but some "montana" and other small antelopes, all so shy that no bag was made. Speke was more fortunate on another occasion with the white rhinoceros. Accompanied by the young princes, he started at sunrise to the bottom of the hills overlooking the head of the Little Windermere lake. On arriving at a thicket of acacia shrubs, he found all the men of the neighbourhood assembled to beat. Having been assigned his position, in a very short time a fine male was discovered making towards him, but looking perplexed as to the direction in which he should bolt. To help him in making up his mind, Speke stole along between the bushes, and sighting him seemingly anchored by the side of a tree, gave him a shot on the broadside with Blisset; which, being too much for his constitution, sent him trotting off, till he lay down exhausted with bleeding, and received a settler. The young princes congratulated Speke most heartily on his success, and wondered at his calmness in going up to such dangerous beasts, pointing out a bystander who showed fearful scars where he had been gored by one of them. Just then a halloo was heard in the distance, signifying that another rhinoceros was hid in a thicket, and off they started in pursuit. Arriving at the place, Speke settled on going in with only two men carrying spare guns, for the acacia thorns were so close that the only tracks into the thicket were runs made by these animals. He stole in first, bending cautiously down till half-way through the run, when straight before him, like a pig from a hole, a large female with her calf behind her came straight down, "whoof-whoofing" upon him. Advance or flight was not

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to be thought of, so Speke jammed himself back into the thorns as well as he could, and gave her such an effectual box on the ear with a bullet, that she swerved out of his way and took refuge in the open, where he followed her down and repeated the attention. She then took to the hills and crossed over a spur, Speke following still, till in another thicket at the head of a glen he saw three more, who, apparently taking courage from the odds in their favour, came all at once charging down on him. Fortunately his gun-bearers were more stanch than those he had when after the buffaloes in Ugogo; so, stepping out of the way, he managed to hit them all three in turn. One dropped dead a little way on, but the others did not pull up till they got to the bottom. As one of them appeared to have his fore-leg broken, Speke went at the sounder one and administered another pill, which only caused him to walk away over the lower end of the slope. Then turning to the disabled one, he desired the Wanyambo to polish him off with their spears and arrows, that he might see their mode of sport. As they moved up to him, however, he made such furious lunges that he kept the whole party at a discreet distance, and Speke was obliged to bring him to his bearings with another ball. At last their turn was come, and every man sent his spear, assagai, or arrow into him with a will, till he sank at last like a porcupine covered with quills. The three heads were ordered to be cut off and sent, like those of state traitors, as a trophy to the king. The meat, which the Wanyambo would not eat, was given to the Wezees belonging to the Kufro Arabs, and they trudged away highly delighted, borne down by enormous flitches; but their Mussulman masters would not allow them to eat them, because the throats had not been duly cut. When the spoils were brought before Rumanika the next day,

he remarked that something stronger than powder must have effected the result, as neither the Arabs nor Nnanaji, though they talked much about shooting, had ever been able to accomplish anything like it.

In return for all the information that Speke gave Rumanika about the wonderful things in Europe and the world in general, the latter amused him with a variety of local stories, some of which might have had a foundation of truth. He said, for instance, that in Ruanda, a country to the west behind Kishakka, there were pigmies who lived in trees, but occasionally came down at night, and, listening at the hut doors, would wait until they heard the name of one of the inmates, when they would call him out, shoot an arrow into his heart, and disappear as they came. But more formidable than these little men were certain monsters, who kept out of the way of men, but lay in wait for women, and when they saw one pass by, would attack her and squeeze her to death. Rumanika added that the villages in Ruanda were of enormous extent, and the people great sportsmen; for they turned out in multitudes, with small dogs on whose necks were tied bells, and blowing horns themselves, to hunt leopards. These people, however, were extremely inhospitable; for some years ago when some Arabs came there, a great drought and famine set in, which they attributed to their agency, and, expelling them the country, said they would never again admit their like. It was from a Ruanda man that Speke heard of the Wilyanwantu or men-eaters, who despised all other food, and he was disposed to connect them with Petherick's Nyam Nyams.

On another occasion, Rumanika introduced a very ugly old woman who came from the island of Gasi, in the Luta Nzigé lake. Her incisor teeth had been extracted, and her upper lip bored with small holes, extending in an arch from

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one corner to the other. She had been sent as a curiosity by Kamrasi, king of Unyoro, to Rumanika. This Luta Nzigé Speke had often heard of as a salt lake, because salt was found on its banks, and he was induced to think that it was of no great size, and a mere backwater to the Nile. It has since been explored by Sir Samuel Baker to a great extent, and its importance has induced its discoverer to place it by the side of Speke's lake under the name of the Albert Nyanza.*

When discoursing on the history of Karagué with Rumanika, the king informed Speke that his father Dagara's body, according to immemorial custom, was sewn up in a cow-skin and placed in a boat floating on the lake, where it remained for three days, until decomposition set in and maggots were engendered, of which three were taken to the palace and given in charge to the heir-elect; and then one worm was transformed into a lion, the other into a leopard, and the other into a stick. After this the body was deposited on the hill Moga-Namirinzi, where a hut was erected over it, and five maidens and fifty cows having been thrust in, the door was closed in such a manner that the whole of them died of starvation. Rohinda the Sixth, said Rumanika, who was his grandfather, was so old that it was thought he would never die, and he himself was so concerned about his standing so long in the way of his son

* Another of Kamrasi's servants was a man of Amara, a people living near the Nyanza, where it is connected by a strait with a salt lake and drained by a river to the north. A Mr Leon fancied these people might be Christians, but his only grounds seemed to be that they raised both their hands in prayer, and uttered the word Zu when sacrificing. He said that a white tribe called Wakuavi used to cross the lake and make raids on their cattle, which led the Wamara far in pursuit into the enemy's country, and at a place called Kisiguisi they found men robed in red clothes. He had also heard of a great mountain somewhere about the country of the Masai.