232 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
were also ascending to the burzah. Court after court 
was passed until we finally stood upon the level top in 
front of the great house of cane and straw which the 
Waganda fondly term Kibuga, or the Palace. The 
space at least was of aulic extent, and the prospect 
gained at every point was also worthy of the imperial 
eyes of the African monarch. 
On all sides rolled in grand waves a voluptuous land 
of sunshine, and plenty, and early summer verdure, 
cooled by soft breezes from the great equatorial fresh- 
water sea. Isolated hill-cones, similar to that of 
Eubaga, or square tabular masses, rose up from the 
beautiful landscape to attract, like mysteries, the curious 
stranger’s observation, and villages and banana groves 
of still fresher green, far removed on the crest of distant 
swelling ridges, announced that Mtesa owned a land 
worth loving. Dark sinuous lines traced the winding 
courses of deep ravines filled with trees, and grassy 
extents of gently undulating ground marked the pastures ; 
broader depressions suggested the cultivated gardens 
and the grain fields, while on the far verge of the 
horizon we saw the beauty and the charm of the land 
melting into the blues of distance. 
There is a singular fascination about this country. 
The land would be loved for its glorious diversified 
prospects, even though it were a howling wilderness ; 
but it owes a great deal of the power which it exercises 
over the imagination to the consciousness that in it 
dwells a people peculiarly fascinating also. “ How 
comes it,” one asks, “ that this barbarous, uneducated, 
and superstitious monarch builds upon this height ? ” 
Not for protection, surely, for he has smoothed the 
uneven ground and formed broad avenues to approach 
it, and a single torch would suffice to level all his fences ? 
Does he, then, care for the charms of the prospect ? 
Has he also an eye to the beauties of nature ? 
Were this monarch as barbarous as other African 
chiefs whom I had met between Zanzibar and Napoleon 
Channel, he would have sought a basin, or the slope of 
some ridge, or some portion of the shores of the lake 
