188 • UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

the fact of the Nyam Nyam soldiers eating the bodies of the slain, that they are cannibals only when food is scarce or in time of war. It is a regular custom with them to consume the dead, and at times children are permitted to die in order that their parents and friends may have the opportunity of gratifying this horrible propensity.

While we were at Dem Idris, Sultan Kayonga came to see us ; he used to be a powerful chief of the Golo tribe, and had much property in this neighbourhood, but he has lost nearly all his possessions, and now has only a few hundred men under his command. Half the men he sent to help Gessi were killed, but he said he was well repaid for the loss, as thus he had been able to take vengeance on his hated foes, the slave-dealers. Though some of the deeds committed by his men were horrible in the extreme ; yet, remembering the example set them and the provocation they had received, one can hardly be sixrprised if, when the opportunity for revenge came, they rivalled the acts of their oppressors. Kayonga himself is a very gentlemanly man, and would be handsome but for a scar which disfigures his face. His little boy, six years old, was playing one day with a gun, which went oft", and his father was shot through the cheek and upper lip.

This same boy was very clever in making miniature cannon out of straws, which were complete in every particular ; he had also made from hearsay, never