DISCOVEKY OF THE VICTORIA N'YANZA. 31 



serious row might have been the consequence of this 

 mischievous trick. 



We again halted to-day, the 23d, and fired alarm-guns 

 all night to no purpose ; so at daybreak three different 

 parties, after receiving particular orders how to scour 

 the country, were sent off at the same time to search 

 for Gaetano. Fortunately the Belooches obeyed my in- 

 junctions, and at 10 A.M. returned with the man, who 

 looked for all the world exactly like a dog who, guilty 

 of an indiscretion, is being brought in disgrace before 

 his master to receive a flogging ; for he knew I had a 

 spare donkey for the sick, and had constantly warned 

 the men from stopping behind alone in these lawless 

 countries. The other two parties adopting, like true 

 Easterns, a better plan of their own, spent the whole 

 day ranging wildly over the country, fruitlessly ex- 

 erting themselves, and frustrating any chance of my 

 getting even an afternoon's march. Kanoni very 

 kindly sent messengers all over his territory to assist 

 in the search : he, like Kurua, has taken every oppor- 

 tunity to show me those little pleasing attentions 

 which always render travelling agreeable. These 

 Wamandas are certainly the most noisy set of beings 

 that I ever met with : commencing their fetes in the 

 middle of the village every day at 3 P.M., with 

 screaming, yelling, rushing, jumping, sham-fighting, 

 drumming, and singing in one collective inharmonious 

 noise, they seldom cease till midnight. Their vil- 

 lages, too, are everywhere much better protected by 



