CHAP. X.] 
“ WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 
283 
people, they had determined upon retreat: thus we 
were at once unable to proceed, unless we could pro¬ 
cure porters from Shooa. This was exceedingly diffi¬ 
cult, as Kamrasi was well known here, and was not 
loved. His country was known as S Quanda,” and I 
at once recognised the corruption of Speke’s “ Uganda.” 
The slave woman, “ Bacheeta,” who had formerly given 
me in Obbo so much information concerning Kamrasi’s 
country, was to be our interpreter; but we also had 
the luck to discover a lad who had formerly been em¬ 
ployed by Mahommed in Faloro, who also spoke the 
language of Quanda, and had learnt a little Arabic. I 
now discovered that the slave woman Bacheeta had 
formerly been in the service of a chief named Sali, who 
had been killed by Kamrasi. Sali was a friend of 
Bionga (Kamrasi’s greatest enemy), and I had been 
warned by Speke not to set foot upon Rionga’s ter¬ 
ritory, or all travelling in Unyoro would be cut off. I 
plainly saw that Bacheeta was in favour of Rionga, as 
a friend of the murdered Sali, by whom she had had 
two children, and that she would most likely tamper 
with the guide, and that we should be led to Rionga 
instead of to Kamrasi. There were “ wheels within 
wheels.” It was^now reported that in the past year, 
immediately after the departure of Speke and Grant 
from Gondokoro, when Debono’s people had left me in 
the manner already described, they had marched direct 
to Rionga, allied themselves to him, crossed the Nile 
with his people, and had attacked Kamrasi’s country, 
killing about three hundred of his men, and capturing 
many slaves. I now understood why they had deceived 
me at Gondokoro : they had obtained the information 
of the country from Speke’s people, and had made use 
of it by immediately attacking Kamrasi in conjunction 
with Rionga. 
This would be a pleasant introduction for me on 
entering Unyoro, as almost immediately after the 
departure of Speke and Grant, Kamrasi had been 
invaded by the very people into whose hands his mes- 
