212 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
us a feast of new as well as clotted milk, mellow and 
ripe bananas, a kid, sweet-potatoes, and eggs, and 
despatched a messenger instantly to the Kabaka Mtesa 
to announce the coming of a stranger in the land, 
declaring at the same time, his intention not to abandon 
us until he had brought us face to face with the great 
monarch of Equatorial Africa, in whom, he smilingly 
assured us, we should meet a friend, and under whose 
protection we might sleep secure. 
We halted one more day to enjoy the bounteous fare 
of the chief of Buka. My admiration for the land and 
the people steadily increased, for I experienced with 
each hour some pleasing civility. The land was in fit 
accord with the people, and few more interesting pro- 
spects could Africa furnish than that which lovingly 
embraces the bay of Buka. From the margin of the 
lake, lined by waving water-cane, up to the highest 
hill-top, all was verdure — of varying shades. The light 
green of the elegant matete contrasted with the deeper 
tints of the various species of fig ; the satin -sheeny 
fronds of the graceful plantains were overlapped by 
clouds of the pale foliage of the tamarind ; while between 
and around all, the young grass of the pastured hill- 
sides spreads its emerald carpet. In free, bold, and yet 
graceful outline, the hills shut in the scene, swelling 
upwards in full dome-like contour, here sweeping round 
to enclose within its hollow a gorgeous plantain-grove, 
there projecting boldly into abrupt, steep headlands, 
and again receding in a succession of noble terraces into 
regions as yet unexplored by the white man. One 
village had a low pebbly beach, that ran in a sinuous 
light-grey line between the darker grey face of the lake 
and the living perennial green of a banana plantation. 
I imagined myself fallen into an estate which I had 
inherited by right divine and human, or at least I felt 
something akin to that large feeling which heirs of 
unencumbered broad lands may be supposed to feel, 
and attributed such an usual feeling to an attack of 
perfect digestion, and a free, unclogged, and undisturbed 
liver. 
