I sent off two of my boys with a note to Sharp, and pushed on as fast as possible to the food districts of Bugoie, where my boys ate so much that I despaired of their surviving. For the next two days I was very ill, owing to my having eaten a number of green bananas in the first banana plantation that I entered. The scarcity of water made it still more difficult to endure the pangs of hunger during the last day of our march.
Having partially recovered, I marched back to my northernmost camp and waited for Sharp. The natives, thinking that I could be imposed upon with my small caravan, ignored my presence, and in face of several requests refused to bring in food for sale. The country was very rich in produce, so I warned the chief that unless he brought in food in the ordinary way for sale I should be obliged to come and take what I wanted, as I could not starve. I was just preparing to carry out my threat, when Sharp arrived, and the chief soon turned up with a diseased sheep and about a quart of flour, which I promptly clapped on to his head, while Sharp roared with laughter at him. He tried hard to maintain his dignity, but with little effect: a little, tub-bellied man, he presented the most ridiculous spectacle imaginable as he stalked out of camp half black, half white, preceded by his awed followers. In the afternoon he returned with plenty of supplies, and after receiving a handsome present in exchange, retired quite satisfied. After making yet two more attempts after elephant, in the course of which I came on many cattle-yards hidden in the deepest recesses of the forest, we gave it up as hopeless, and determined to press on to the Albert Edward Lake. During one of my elephant hunts I came on the skeleton of a gigantic ape, larger than anything I have ever seen in the anthropoids, but I never saw a live specimen, though the natives assured me that they were plentiful, and were a great source of annoyance to the villages, being in the habit of carrying off stray women.
While exploring with a small number of followers, I observed some ape-like creatures leering at me from behind banana-palms, and with considerable difficulty my Ruanda guide induced one of them to come and be inspected. He was a tall man with the long arms, pendent paunch, and short legs of the ape, pronouncedly microcephalous and prognathous. At first he was terribly alarmed, but soon gained confidence, and when I asked him about game and elephant, he gave me most realistic representations of them and of how they should be attacked. I failed to exactly define their status, but from the contempt in which they were held by the Wa Ruanda their local caste must be very low. The stamp of the brute was so strong on them that I should place them lower in the human scale than any other natives I have seen in Africa. Their type is quite distinct from the other people's, and, judging from the twenty to thirty specimens that I saw, very consistent. Their face, body, and limbs are covered with wiry hair, and the hang of the long, powerful arms, the slight stoop of the trunk, and the hunted, vacant expression of the face, made up a tout ensemble that was a terrible pictorial proof of Darwinism. Two of them accompanied me to Mushari. On the road they showed me the ease with which they can make fire with their fire-sticks.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE RUTCHURU VALLEY AND THE ALBERT EDWARD LAKE.
On June 26th we started on our march to the Albert Edward Lake, and camped that night near Kahanga's village. Many of the more important men came and paid their respects to us, but Kahanga himself did not turn up. We inquired of his Prime Minister for what reason he had not done so, and were informed that he was ill; but having, as I thought, seen him, as I passed, looking far from ill, I made further inquiries, and discovered that he was afraid of our caravan, and imagined that if he came to our camp we should make him prisoner and demand a big ransom of ivory. I can only imagine that he had heard of other white men behaving in this manner. I tried hard to induce him to come, but in vain. As when I was there before with only a few boys he had been exceedingly friendly, it is obvious under what disadvantages one labours when travelling through Africa with a big caravan.
The following day we crossed the Mungawo, and following the ridge of the spur which runs down to the junction of the Mungawo and the Kako through the Shoni district, we camped on a bluff overlooking the Kako itself.
The Kako, as the southern portion of the Rutchuru is called, is a large body of water, many feet deep, and quite unfordable. Its banks are clothed with dense forests.
The people of Shoni were most friendly, and we purchased a large supply of beans. At this camp I saw a waterbuck, the first antelope that we had seen for many weeks.
We crossed the river by a native bridge formed of trunks of trees thrown across and bound together with fibre. Beneath, the Kako thundered, a mighty torrent, and the cloud of spray had left a saline deposit on the rocks, which was much appreciated by our cattle.