i6o UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



stranger wayfaring past their dwelling I I can never think of 

 Bekamba without recalling his noble and courteous bearing on 

 that first occasion, and I was sorry when I heard subsequently 

 that grave doubts were entertained as to his loyalty to our 

 Government. But we must remember, that he was an old 

 man, and that he could scarcely be expected to love the 

 conquering white man who had reduced his country from an 

 independent kingdom to a mere province of the Uganda Pro- 

 tectorate. Much of his own authority had necessarily vanished 

 by these changes, and his king, Kabarega, was a fugitive and 

 an exile. Furthermore, his own children were in Kabarega's 

 power, and held by that ruthless savage as hostages for their 

 father's good behaviour; Kabarega keeping the threat hanging 

 over poor Bekamba's head, that his children might any day be 

 mutilated or killed. 



When 1 arrived on the 17th of January at Masindi, 1 noticed 

 premonitory signs that some terrible events were about to 

 happen. We had at Masindi a number of armed Waganda 

 soldiers, our friendly allies. They had been sent by the Pro- 

 testant Prime Minister of Uganda with the consent of the 

 British Government. The W^aganda soldiers took duty in turns 

 with the Soudanese. As long as one of us wihte men was at 

 Masindi, the Waganda felt supported and remained with us ; 

 but what made them decamp in a hurry during our absence 

 from Masindi, I do not know, unless they had some inkling of 

 the bloodshed about to happen. The fact remains, that when 

 I arrived at Masindi, all our armed W^aganda had secretly fled ; 

 and some of the Lendus too had run away, taking their families 

 and belongings with them. 



At this time the fate of us two white men — we were but two 

 in Unyoro — was trembling in the balance. That others in the 

 Uganda Protectorate thought so too, would appear from the 

 English missionaries at Kampala assuring me that we were 

 especially remembered by them in their daily prayers. 1 am 

 convinced, that if a single mutineer had succeeded in personally 

 appearing in Unyoro, this province would have been lost, for a 

 time at least, to the British Government, and it would have 

 entailed hard fighting to reconquer it. We did not know 

 what moment one or all of the Unyoro garrisons might declare 

 openly in favour of their brothers and relatives who were in 

 open mutiny in Uganda, and who had murdered three white 



