NORTH-EASTERN EXTREMITY OF NYANZA. 745 



With these we opened a friendly conversation, during which they disclosed 

 the name of the country as ' Mahata ' or ' Mabeta' in Ugeyeya; more they 

 would not communicate until we should land. We prepared to do this, but 

 the numbers on the shore increased so fast that we were compelled to pull off 

 again until they should moderate their excitement and make room. They 

 seemed to think we were about to pull off altogether, for suddenly appeared 

 out of the bush, on each side of the spot where we had intended to land, such 

 a host of spears that we hoisted our sail, and left them to try their treachery 

 on some other boat or canoe more imprudent than ours. The discomfited 

 people were seen to consult together on a small ridge behind the bush lining 

 the lake, and no doubt they thought we were about to pass close to a small 

 point at the north end of the cove, for they shouted gleefully at the prospect 

 of a prize; but, lowering the sail, we pulled to windward, far out of the reach 

 of bow or sling, and at dusk made for a small island, to which we moored 

 our boat, and there camped in security. 



"Next day we continued on our course, coasted along Nidura and Wan- 

 gano, and sailed into the bay which forms the north-eastern extremity of 

 Lake Victoria Nyanza. Manyara, on the eastern side of the bay, is a land of 

 bold hills and ridges, while the very north-eastern end, through which issues 

 the Ygama Eiver into the Nyanza, is flat. The opposite coast to Munyara is 

 that of Muwanda and the promontory of Chaga, while the great slug-like 

 island of Usuguru, standing from west to east across the mouth of the bay, 

 shuts the bay almost entirely in. At Muwanda we again trusted our fortunes 

 with the natives, and were this time not deceived, so that we were enabled 

 to lay in quite a stock of vegetables and provisions at a cheap rate. They 

 gave us all the information we desired. Baringo, they said, is the name ap- 

 plied by the people of Ugana to Nduru, a district of Ugeyeya, and the bay 

 on which our boat rode, the extreme end of the lake ; nor did they know, 

 nor had they heard of any lake, large or small, other than the Nyanza. I 

 have described the coast from Muwanda to Uganda, and my visit to Mtesa, 

 together with my happy encounter with Colonel Linant de Bellefonds, of 

 Gordon's staff, at some length, so need not go over the same ground. The 

 day after my last letter was written I made arrangements with the king of 

 Uganda, by which he agreed to lend me thirty canoes, and some five hun- 

 dred men, to convey the Expedition from Usukuma to the Katonga River. 

 With this promise, and ten large canoes as an earnest of it, I started from 

 Murchison Bay on April 17. We kept company as far as the Katonga River, 

 but here the chief captain of the Waganda said that he should have to cross 

 over to Sasse, distant twelve miles from the mainland, and the largest island 

 in the Lake Nyanza, to procure the remaining twenty canoes promised by 

 Mtesa. The chief gave me two canoes to accompany me, promising that I 

 should be overtaken by the entire fleet before many days. I was impatient 

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