gain, and after drinking pombe with Nango, when we heard that
three Wakungu had been seized at Kari, in consequence of the murder,
the march was commenced, but soon after stopped by the mischievous
machinations of our guide, who pretended it was too late in the day
to cross the jungles on ahead, either by the road to the source or the
palace, and therefore would not move till the morning; then, leaving
us, on the pretext of business, he vanished, and was never seen again.
A small black fly, with thick shoulders and bullet-head, infests the
place, and torments the naked arms and legs of the people with its sharp
stings to an extent that must render life miserable to them.

After a long struggling march, plodding through huge grasses and jungle,
we reached a district which I cannot otherwise describe than by calling
it a "Church Estate." It is dedicated in some mysterious manner to
Lubari (Almighty), and although the king appeared to have authority
over some of the inhabitants of it, yet others had apparently a sacred
character, exempting them from the civil power, and he had no right to
dispose of the land itself. In this territory there are small villages
only at every fifth mile, for there is no road, and the lands run high
again, whilst, from want of a guide, we often lost the track. It now
transpired that Budja, when he told at the palace that there was no road
down the banks of the Nile, did so in consequence of his fear that if he
sent my whole party here they would rob these church lands, and so bring
him into a scrape with the wizards or ecclesiastical authorities. Had my
party not been under control, we could not have put up here; but on my
being answerable that no thefts should take place, the people kindly
consented to provide us with board and lodgings, and we found them very
obliging. One elderly man, half-witted--they said the king had driven
his senses from him by seizing his house and family--came at once on
hearing of our arrival, laughing and singing in a loose jaunty maniacal
manner, carrying odd sticks, shells, and a bundle of mbugu rags, which
he deposited before me, dancing and singing again, then retreating and
bringing some more, with a few plantains from a garden, when I was to
eat, as kings lived upon flesh, and "poor Tom" wanted some, for he lived
with lions and elephants in a hovel beyond the gardens, and his belly
was empty. He was precisely a black specimen of the English parish
idiot.

At