ke ordered his fleet to
keep together, promising ammunition to his men if they would fight. The
people in one boat, however, were so frightened that they allowed her to
spin round and round in the current. The Wanyoro were stealing on them,
as they could hear, though nothing could be seen. One of the boats kept
in-shore, close to the reeds, when suddenly she was caught by
grappling-hooks. The men cried out: "Help, Bana! they are killing us."
Speke roared in reply: "Go in, and the victory will be ours." When,
however, three shots were fired from the hooked boat, the Wanyoro fled,
leaving one of their number killed and one wounded, and Speke and his
party were allowed to retreat unmolested.

Speke, after proceeding up the river some distance, determined to
continue the journey by land, following the track Grant had taken.

Grant's camp was reached on the 20th, and the next day a messenger
arrived from Kamrasi, saying that the king would be glad to see them,
and the march was ordered to Unyoro.

The frontier was again passed, when the country changed much for the
worse. Scanty villages, low huts, dirty-looking people clad in skins,
the plantain, sweet potato, _sesamum_, and millet forming the chief
edibles, besides goats and fowls. No hills, except a few scattered
cones, broke the level surface of the land, and no pretty views cheered
the eye. They were now getting to a distance from the rain-attractive
influences of the Mountains of the Moon, and vegetation decreased
proportionately. Their first halt was on the estate of the chief
Kidjwiga. Scarcely had they been established than a messenger page from
Mtesa, with a party of fifty Waganda, arrived to enquire how Bana was,
and to remind him of the gun and other articles he had promised to send
up from Gani.

The natives ran off as they passed through the country, believing them
to be cannibals. They supposed that the iron boxes which the porters
carried on their shoulders each contained a couple of white dwarfs,
which were allowed to fly off to eat people. They, however, gained
confidence, and soon flocked round the Englishmen's huts.

On arriving at the end of their day's march on the 2nd of September,
they were told that elephants had been seen close by. Grant and Speke,
therefore, sallied forth with their guns, and found a herd of about a
hundred, feeding on a plain of long grass. Speke, by stealing along
under cover of the high grass, got close to a h