Having found a cumbrous and heavy canoe, but somewhat large, on the 19th, it was manned with twelve men, and I set out to explore. At about 11 A.M. I had got to a distance of eight miles, and halted in front of Kaiyura’s settlement, which consisted of eighty-one large huts, and was rich in goats and sheep. Kaiyura is a Msongora, who so far remained unconquered by the Wara-Sura. The craft that we were voyaging was too clumsy and lopsided to venture far out into the lake, for with the slightest breeze the water leaped in, but I was quite a mile from the shore during most of the trip, and the lead was cast every few minutes, but the deepest water I obtained was fifteen feet, while it sank over three feet in a soft ooze. About 400 yards from the shore a long sounding pole was used, and each time it dropped four feet into the ooze, which emitted a most horrible stench, like that of a sewer, when it came out.
In the early part of the day the face of the Lake was as smooth as a mirror, of a grey-green colour. The shore was remarkable for the great number of butterflies, and many floated dead on the surface of the water.
There were two islands standing in the middle of Katwé Bay, and rising about 100 feet above the water. One of them was distinguished for a chalky-coloured cliff. They contained large settlements, and were evidently well populated.
On returning to Katwé I saw a great black leopard about 250 yards off, just retreating from the Lake side, where he had been slaking his thirst. He disappeared before we could paddle the unwieldy craft nearer the shore.
1889.
June 19.
Katwé.
The only advantage I derived from my day’s exploration was the complete survey of the bay, and obtaining a view beyond the headland of Kaiyura into the chaotic and formless void. The haze was as thick as a fog, and nothing could be distinguished further than three miles.
On the 20th of June the Expedition marched out from Katwé, and escorted by a large number of Wasongora chiefs and herdsmen, and our Wakonju friends, filed to the eastward, along a path that skirted the greater Salt Lake, and dipped down into the grassy round basin of the lesser briny lake. Surmounting the ridge eastward of the basin, we descended into a great plain, which evidently had but recently been covered with the waters of the Albert Edward. Pools still existed, and narrowed tongues of swamp, until, after a march of eighteen and a half miles, we arrived at Mukungu, in Unyampaka, of Toro, Chief Kassessé, whose name was made familiar to me in January 1876.
Opposite the half-dozen zeribas of Mukungu was the long low island called Irangara. The narrow arm of the Lake, about 150 yards across, wound around it, and between the Islands of Katero, Kateribba, and four or five others east of Irangara, with great floating masses of pistia plants. Far across through the mist over the islands loomed the highlands of Uhaiyana, and to the south we had the faintest image of Kitagwenda, Chief Ruigi, and I knew then that we stood west of the arm of the Lake we had called Beatrice Gulf.
1889.
June 20.
Mukungu.
The cattle had been driven across into the Island of Irangara, everything of value had been deported away, and a monstrous herd had but lately left Mukungu for Buruli, urged to fast travel by the retreating Rukara and his army. The huts of the chiefs showed that these people of Mukungu were advanced in the arts of ornamental architecture. A house which the Pasha occupied was one of the most ornate I had seen. The hut was twenty feet in height and about twenty-five feet in diameter, with a doorway brilliant in colouring like a rude imitation of the stucco work of primitive Egyptians. The doorway was ample—six feet high and six feet wide, with a neat arched approach. Plastered partitions divided the interiors into segments of circles, in which were sunk triangles and diamond figures, lines of triangles surmounting lines of diamonds, the whole pointed in red and black. One division before the wide doorway was intended as a hall of audience—behind the gaily-decorated partition was the family bed-chamber; to the right were segments of the circle devoted to the children.