6o THE PROVINCE OF TORO 



for some cause or other they were taken at about 

 this stage of the journey with a strong access of 

 reHgious fervour. About half of them were Chris- 

 tians, and it was curious in the evening to hear the 

 droning of prayers instead of the usual quarrellings 

 and sounds of strife. The headman was chief priest 

 among them, and his nasal, monotoning voice, grow- 

 ing always flatter and flatter, irresistibly suggested 

 the savour of incense and the atmosphere of a cathe- 

 dral in Italy or Spain. Some of them had books, 

 with which I held a class in catechism, and they 

 were not a little impressed by the apparent skill 

 with which I read a language, which they knew I 

 could not speak. The great majority of them were 

 Roman Catholic, and in this connexion it might 

 not be out of place to mention an incident which 

 occurred some months later. I was walking along 

 the road towards Entebbe one morning when I met 

 three people, a White Father and two native boys — 

 one carrying a water-bottle and the other a small 

 parcel. The missionary was on his way to visit a 

 native chief about a week's journey distant ; his change 

 of raiment was in the small parcel, and his food, he 

 told me, he always obtained at the villages where he 

 slept. We exchanged tobacco and good wishes and 

 went our different ways. A few miles farther on I 

 met a caravan of some thirty porters laden with the 

 usual impedimenta of travel — tent, bed, cooking 

 apparatus, stores, and so on ; then three cows and a 

 flock of sheep and goats ; and then some half a dozen 



