CHAPTER XX.
EXPLORATION OF VICTORIA NYANZA.
Preparing the Lady Alice for Sea — Selects his Crew — The Start for the Circumnavigation of Lake Victoria — Afloat on the Lake — A Night at Uvuma — Barmecide Fare — Message from Mtesa — Camp on Soweh Island — An Extraordinary Monarch — Mtesa, Emperor of Uganda — Arrival at the Imperial Capital — Glowing Description of the Country — A Grand Mission Field — The Treachery of Bumbireh — Saved! — Refuge Island — Return to Camp at Kagehyi.
The members of the expedition enjoyed their much-needed rest; and Stanley, after taking the necessary observations to ascertain the position of Kagehyi, and its altitude above the sea; to prepare paper, pens and ink for the morrow’s report to the journals which had dispatched him to this remote and secluded part of the world; to make calculations of the time likely to be occupied in a halt at Kagehyi, in preparing and equipping the Lady Alice for sea;—found that his own personal work had but begun.
Within seven days the boat was ready, and strengthened for a rough sea life. Provisions of flour and dried fish, bales of cloth, and beads of various kinds, odds and ends of small possible necessaries were boxed, and she was declared, at last, to be only waiting for her crew. From the young guides first selected by him at Bagamoyo, and who Kachéché, the detective, informed him were the sailors of the expedition, he made a list of ten sailors and a steersman, to whose fidelity he was willing to entrust himself and fortunes while coasting round the Victorian sea.
THE VICTORIA NYANZA.
After drawing up instructions for Frank Pocock and Fred. Barker on a score of matters concerning the well-being of the expedition during his absence, and enlisting for them, by an adequate gift, the goodwill of Sungoro and Prince Kaduma, Stanley set sail on the 8th of March, 1875, eastward along the shores of the broad arm of the lake which he first sighted, and which henceforth is known, in honor of its first discoverer, as “Speke Gulf.”
Space will not permit us to follow the details of Stanley’s voyage around the lake. Sufficient to say it was accompanied with many interesting and thrilling adventures with the different tribes along its shores. The most of these tribes were of a savage and warlike character, and gave the explorer no little amount of trouble.
On the 29th of March he crossed Napoleon Channel and coasted along Uganda between numerous islands, the largest of which are densely populated. At Kiwa Island he rested for the day, and was received with the greatest cordiality by the chief, who sent messengers to the island of Keréngé, a distance of three miles, to purchase bananas and jars of maramba wine, for the guest, as he said, of the Kabaka Mtesa. “As it was the first time for twenty-two days that we had lived with natives since leaving Kagehyi we celebrated, as we were in duty bound, our arrival among friends,” says Stanley.
“The next day, guided and escorted by the chief, we entered Ukafu, where we found a tall, handsome, young Mtongoleh in command of the district, before whom the Chief of Kiwa Island made obeisance as before a great lord. The young Mtongoleh, though professing an ardent interest in us, and voluble of promises, treated us only to Barmecide fare, after waiting twenty-four hours. Perceiving that his courtesies, though suavely proffered, failed to satisfy the cravings of our jaded stomachs, we left him still protesting enormous admiration for us, and still volubly assuring us that he was preparing grand hospitalities in our honor.