AT KAMPALA 137 



have been slaughtered, and the king has been dechired deposed, 

 he still defies the Government, and holds his own in some parts 

 of the Protectorate ; it is said he has some hundreds, according 

 to others some thousands, of adherents armed with guns. I 

 became aware of this turbulent native spirit during my period 

 of authority at Kampala. I had reliable information that plots 

 against the Government were brewing. There were at least half 

 a dozen different plots. King Mwanga wanted to get rid of 

 Apollo Katikiro, some of the ambitious chiefs wished to turn out 

 Mwanga, others longed to oust the British Government. One of 

 the leading chiefs concerned in these matters was Mwanika. It 

 was an anxious time for me, a civilian temporarily in command 

 of a fort and of Soudanese troops, and responsible for the main- 

 tenance of peace. I kept myself thoroughly informed of every 

 movement of the conspirators and, drawing my lines closer 

 and closer, waited for one to commit himself sufficiently to 

 seize him. The disturbing news reached also the late Captain 

 Dunning in distant Unyoro, and he wrote to me about it, as he 

 was unaware that I was alive to the danger menacing the 

 Government. Under pretext of collecting men to rebuild the 

 Protestant cathedral, noisv demagogues were beating drums and 

 parading the outskirts of Kampala with armed men. Mwanika, 

 I heard, was laying in arms and ammunition. 



In the night I received an urgent message to see the Acting 

 Commissioner who lay ill at Port Alice. Port Alice is some 

 twenty miles off. I took every precaution with my Soudanese 

 officers, in case an outbreak should happen whilst I was away, 

 and then I hurried off to Port Alice in the darkness of the 

 night. I found the Colonel asleep, and not wishing to wake 

 him, I went round to the tent of the gentleman who subse- 

 quently became temporarily the Acting Commissioner. Here 

 I was given a blanket, and invited to make myself comfort- 

 able on the floor until daybreak, when I should be able to see 

 my patient. 



Those who have been to Port Alice know something about the 

 mosquitoes there. The late Captain Raymond Portal describes 

 them humorously as of the size of elephants. I have met 

 with a good many varieties of mosquitoes, the grey, the zebra- 

 striped, and so on ; but Port Alice has its own special breed 

 of a reddish-brown colour, twice the usual size, and armed with 

 weapons twice as powerful. It is a well-known fact, that the 



