"Mr. Stanley's hope of obtaining canoes was soon realized," said Fred, when the party assembled in the evening, "but he suffered greatly before he secured them. Small-pox and other diseases carried off many of his people; the natives at first refused all offers of peace, and would sell no provisions. At the rapids of Ukassa, near the mouth of the Ruiki River, a fleet of canoes came to attack him, but the savages retreated when they found the strangers were ready to fight.
CANOES IN THE MOUTH OF THE RUIKI RIVER.
"He found some old and abandoned canoes which his men repaired; and with these canoes and the Lady Alice he transported a part of his force, while the remainder went by land. The banks of the river were densely peopled, and the houses in the villages showed a considerable advance towards civilization. Many of the villages were built in regular streets, and some of these streets were fully two miles long. From a native, who was made prisoner, Mr. Stanley learned that he was in the district called Ukusu, and that the people would not permit strangers to pass along the river. The river was about seventeen hundred yards wide, and thickly studded in many places with islands densely covered with trees and undergrowth.
WAR-HATCHET OF UKUSU.
"The houses were of various patterns, but all of a single story in height. Most of them were mere double cages, made very elegantly of the panicum grass cane, seven feet long by five feet wide and six feet high, separated, as regards the main building, but connected by the roof, so that the central apartments were common to both cages, and in these the families meet and perform their household duties, or receive their friends for social chat. Near each village was the burial-place or vault of its preceding kings, roofed over, with the leaves of the Phrynium ramosissimum, which appears to be as useful a plant for many reasons as the banana to the Waganda.