UGANDA AND WEST SIDE OF VICTORIA NYANZA. 223 
better acquainted, that I should make a convert of him, 
and make him useful to Africa — but what other impres- 
sions I had may be gathered from the remarks I wrote 
that evening in my diary : — 
“ As I had read Speke’s book for the sake of its 
geographical information, I retained but a dim remem- 
brance of his description of his life in Uganda. If I 
remember rightly, Speke described a youthful prince, 
vain and heartless, a wholesale murderer and tyrant, 
one who delighted in fat women. Doubtless he de- 
scribed what he saw, but it is far from being the state 
UGANDA DRUMS. 
of things now. Mtesa has impressed me as being an 
intelligent and distinguished prince, who, if aided in 
time by virtuous philanthropists, will do more for Central 
Africa than fifty years of Gospel teaching, unaided by 
such authority, can do. I think I see in him the light 
that shall lighten the darkness of this benighted region ; 
a prince well worthy the most hearty sympathies that 
Europe can give him. In this man I see the possible 
fruition of Livingstone’s hopes, for with his aid the 
civilization of Equatorial Africa becomes feasible. I 
remember the ardour and love which animated Living- 
