Chapter II. 
shrill cries. The sun was setting in a halo of fiery clouds. The 
last rays lit up the unfamiliar scenery where the shadows of 
night increased the sense of surrounding mystery. 
SHORES OF LAKE VICTORIA, NEAR KAMI’A LA. 
Little by little the colour of the sky passed from red and 
purple to colder hues and through subtler tones. Soon clouds 
and water and islands seemed to mingle and vanish in the 
twilight which was spreading swiftly over the surface of the 
lake. 
For hundreds and hundreds of miles on every side stretched 
the vast regions of Central Africa, unknown up till yesterday, 
inhabited by that unhappy race which has survived a martyrdom 
of centuries, crushed under its fearful past of slavery, blood¬ 
thirsty rulers and murderous wars. To-day this era of violence 
48 
