Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



would not recognize it unless it were pointed 

 out. 



Half-way up a stagnant backwater the launch was 

 cast off, and the boats with their precious burdens 

 were poled and pushed by savages wading waist 

 deep in mud and slush to the low causeway which 

 is euphoniously termed a pier. Mr. Anderson, 

 who was in charge of this district — part of Unyoro 

 — met us here, and there was a guard of honour 

 of the King's African Rifles awaiting us, drawn 

 up close by under the command of Lt. Thompson, 

 who would accompany us till we embarked on 

 the Nile again. 



On the opposite side of the river to Mruli live 

 a very large tribe of natives, called Bukedi. 

 These are all divided into different sections or sub- 

 tribes, some of whom are friendly, but the other 

 more distant ones, never having been brought into 

 contact with the white man, are unfriendly. Dora, 

 the chief of one of the adjacent friendly divisions, 

 was there to greet us, with some eight hundred 

 of his wild tribesmen fully adorned with paint and 

 leopard skins. They formed themselves up into 

 a half-moon, dancing and singing alternately in 

 honour of the great white chief who had come all 

 the way across the seas to meet them, and them 

 alone. The savage knows little or nothing of 

 what goes on, or of other inhabitants, outside his 

 own tribal boundaries, so that any visitor he may 

 happen to meet has always arrived simply and 



80 



