The Butahu River separates Ulegga from Uringa.
The Wara-Sura were gathered under Rukara, a general of Kabba Rega, King of Unyoro. Some of these ferocious raiders were said to be stationed at the ferry of Waiyana, a few miles north of here. The Wakonju offered to assist us to drive them out of the land.
We were told that Rukara’s headquarters were at Katwé, a town near the Salt Lakes, which are somewhat to the south.
That on the western bank of the Semliki are the tribes Wakovi and Wasoki, and that there are also Watwa pigmies.
We were informed that Usongora and Toro had submitted to Kabba Rega; but the inhabitants of the lake islands refused to promise allegiance, and it was said Kakuri, the chief, had applied to the Wanyavingi and Wanyankori for assistance against Kabba Rega. We were promised the submission of all the Wakonju and Wasangora if we entered into treaty or agreement with them, and I accepted the offer.
The Wakonju people are round-headed, broad faced, and of medium size. They affect circlets manufactured of calamus fibre, very slender, and covering the ankles by hundreds. They also wear a large number on the upper arm. The chiefs also are distinguished by heavy copper or brass wristlets. The women’s neck decorations consist of heavy iron rings coiled spirally at the ends. On the slopes of the mountain, I am told, is found much fine crystal quartz.
At the entrance of almost every village in Ukonju may be seen a miniature tent, with a very small doorway, before which the natives place a banana or an egg. A tradition exists that Mikonju, the founder of the tribe who first cleared the forest, and planted bananas, initiated this custom to prevent theft. It is a tithe offered to the fetish or spirit to remind it that they wish their banana groves, or the eggs whence issue fowls, protected.
On the 12th of June I despatched Lieutenant Stairs, with sixty rifles and a number of Wakonju guides, to proceed to the Semliki, and satisfy all doubts about it; and on the next day he returned, having been favourably received by the natives, who tendered their submission, and accompanied our officer to the river explaining to him every matter of interest. He found it forty-two yards wide, and ten feet deep, sunk between banks of fifty and sixty feet high, and with a current of three miles per hour. After tasting and looking at it, and questioning all the natives who could impart information, he concluded that:—I. Because of the unbroken appearance of the range westward, which has faced the Ruwenzori range ever since leaving the Albert; II. Because of the peculiar grey, muddy colour; III. Because of the peculiar flavour, which is slightly saline, and “unsatisfying,” like that of the Albert Lake; IV. Because of the unanimous statement of the natives that it flows a little west of north, then north, then north-easterly to the Lake of Unyoro, which is the Albert; V. Because of the positive assurance of one native traveller, who is acquainted with the river along its course, from its exit out of one lake to its entering into the other; the Semliki river leaves the upper lake, takes a winding course, with a strong inclination to the western range, when, after turning to the north-east, it gradually draws nearer the Ruwenzori range, flows through Awamba forest and Utuku into the Albert Nyanza.
From an anthill near Mtsora, I observed that from W.N.W., a mile away, commenced a plain, which was a duplicate of that which had so deceived the Egyptians, and caused them to hail it as their lake, and that it extended southerly, and appeared as though it were the bed of a lake from which the waters had recently receded. The Semliki, which had drained it dry, was now from 50 to 60 feet below the crest of its banks. The slopes, consisting of lacustrine deposits, grey loam, and sand, could offer no resistance to a three-mile current, and if it were not for certain reefs, formed by the bed-rock under the surface of the lacustrine deposit, it is not to be doubted that such a river would soon drain the upper lake. The forest ran across from side to side of the valley, a dark barrier, in very opposite contrast to the bleached grass which the nitrous old bed of the lake nourished.
1889.
June 12.
Mtsora.