CROSS THE BAY OF KAT0NGA. 
207 
ganda would never give her up for nothing, or they 
might have killed her. 
On the 20th of May, as I sat on a height admiring 
the beautiful Katonga Bay, one mile across, and look- 
ing at the sweep of richly-wooded land on its other 
side, with hills in the background, the king of Ugan- 
da's order arrived that I was to proceed to his capital 
by land, and the pleasure I had long anticipated of 
being conveyed by water was doomed to disappoint- 
ment. My heart sank within me. I descended, how- 
ever, to the edge of the bay, where our men w r ere 
amusing themselves, and where five or six canoes were 
ready for the party. The Waganda and our Seedees 
got into them to splash and duck each other. The 
fowls belonging to the ferryman were seized and killed 
previous to crossing over, because, if the hippopotamus 
heard them crow, the canoes would be upset ! Hours 
of larking were spent, and at last fourteen of us, with 
ten loads, sat in my canoe of four paddles, and we 
emerged from the winding channel of tall rushes into 
the bay ; here we were joined by two other canoes, all 
well laden. Kacing commenced, the paddlers facing 
to the front, scooping the water with all their might 
as they sat on the sides of the canoe, and, for a mar- 
vel, not splashing us, for three-quarters of a mile over 
rippled water. Here, for the first time, I met with a 
plant whose leaves looked very beautiful in the water, 
growing by those of the lily of the Nile — namely, the 
Trapa natans, the roots of which the Waganda eat. 
There was no shore to land at; a floating mass of 
tangled grasses prevented the further progress of the 
canoe, and we had to jump out into the water. One 
leg went down four feet to hard sand, while the other 
