eth were extracted, four to six
lower incisors, when they were young, because no Myoro would allow a
person to drink from his cup unless he conformed to that custom. The
same law exists in Usoga.

Chapter XVI. Bahr El Abiad

First Voyage on the Nile--The Starting--Description of the River and
the Country--Meet a Hostile Vessel--A Naval Engagement--Difficulties
and Dangers--Judicial Procedure--Messages from the King of
Uganda--His Efforts to get us back--Desertion--The Wanyoro
Troops--Kamrasi--Elephant-Stalking--Diabolical Possessions.

In five boats of five planks each, tied together and caulked with mbugu
rags, I started with twelve Wanguana, Kasoro and his page-followers, and
a small crew, to reach Kamrasi's palace in Unyoro--goats, dogs, and kit,
besides grain and dried meat, filling up the complement--but how many
days it would take nobody knew. Paddles propelled these vessels, but the
lazy crew were slow in the use of them, indulging sometimes in racing
spurts, then composedly resting on their paddles whilst the gentle
current drifted us along. The river, very unlike what it was from
the Ripon Falls downward, bore at once the character of river and
lake--clear in the centre, but fringed in most places with tall rush,
above which the green banks sloped back like park lands. It was all very
pretty and very interesting, and would have continued so, had not Kasoro
disgraced the Union Jack, turning it to piratical purposes in less than
one hour.

A party of Wanyoro, in twelve or fifteen canoes, made of single tree
trunks, had come up the river to trade with the Wasoga, and having
stored their vessels with mbugu, dried fish, plantains cooked and raw,
pombe, and other things, were taking their last meal on shore before
they returned to their homes. Kasoro seeing this, and bent on a boyish
spree, quite forgetting we were bound for the very ports they were bound
for, ordered our sailors to drive in amongst them, landed himself, and
sent the Wanyoro flying before I knew what game was up, and then set to
pillaging and feasting on the property of those very men whom it was our
interest to propitiate, as we expected them shortly to be our hosts.

The ground we were on belonged to king Mtesa, being a dependency of
Uganda, and it struck me as singular that Wanyoro should be found here;
but I no sooner discovered the truth than I made our boatmen disgorge
everything they had taken, called back the Wanyoro to take care o