124 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

fields of dliurra, sem-sem, and telaboon. The lints were well built with mud walls, and bad most curious pictures of leopards painted on tbe walls botli inside and out ; tbe tails were drawn as tbick as tbe bodies, and I noticed in one place tbat wbere a bole in tbe wall came in tbe line of tbe tail, tbe artist bad made tbe tail go round and beyond tbe window in straight lines. Large black squares on the body of tbe animal represented the spots.

Near this place, when on the march, I lost sight of my negro servant Maboom ; I had never before missed him on tbe march during the whole time he had been with me, tbat is from August 1878, so when he returned after an absence of some hours, I inquired what had happened to him. He told me that we had been passing near to bis old home, from which, after killing bis father, tbe slave-dealers had taken him and his mother, and being so near he wished to look at tbe hut again ; but be found it all broken down and deserted. A little later, after passing Madi, he told me tbat he had inquired after his mother, and beard that she was living in a village near Madi, but be would not go to see her, for he said, "I feared if I saw my mother I should want to stay with her, and I must not leave you."

This is another proof, if one be needed, of the faithful and strong attachment of Africans to those who treat them kindly.

Leaving Kadru early tbe next day, September 25,