240 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

rock and bush about the place. Nearing the village two shots were fired to announce our approach, and a crowd rapidly gathered on the beach. I sprang ashore as the canoe grounded, and inquired of the first man who greeted me if there were any news of the Wazungu (white men). Yes, Mackay had come, and in another minute I had grasped his hand, more than two years having elapsed since I had said good-bye to him at Bagamoyo.

"We walked up to the village together, and, after supper, I opened the letters he had brought me.

There was much to tell one another ; Mackay had his troubles and travels to relate, also how, of the two men who had been sent out to his aid, one had fallen and the other been obliged to return. I had my story to tell of the death of Dr. Smith, the murder of Smith and O'Neill, my work in Uganda, and my voyage to meet him. Time flew by unheeded, and the cocks began to crow, and the first pale flush appeared in the grey east before we retired to rest.

Mackay had started early in the year, with a caravan, for the Lake, and on getting some twohundred miles from the coast, received the news of the murder of Smith and O'Neill. Leaving the caravan under the charge of one of his companions, he came on rapidly to Kagei, with only a few attendants, and arrived there in June. He had thus been nearly two months at that place when I arrived,