258 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

friend Simbuzi (or, as Stanley spells it, Sambuzi), one of the most intelligent of Mtesa's chiefs. He had been one of the king's servants or pages at the time when Speke was in Uganda, and had been in command of the Waganda warriors who accompanied Stanley on his expedition to " Beatrice Gulf."

On November 13th a report reached us that some white men had arrived at Mruli ; so, concluding that it was the reinforcement we w Tere expecting, I decided to go and meet them there. Having told Mtesa of my intention, he expressed his willingness for me to go, and promised to furnish me with 200 porters and an armed escort of 100 men, as part of the road was dangerous.

On November 21st I started for Mruli. The first three or four days' march was in a N.N.W. direction, through inhabited districts with large villages surrounded by the inevitable banana groves, and separated from each other by broad swampy valleys covered with a thick growth of coarse grasses and frequent clumps of wild date palms. On the sixth day we came to jungle, with here and there clearings containing villages. We also passed several villages of the Wahuma herdsmen, and saw numbers of their fine cattle grazing in the open glades of the forest.

The huts of the "Wahuma are a great contrast to the neat dwellings of the Waganda, being badly and untidily built. They are generally placed in a circle enclosing a large courtyard, where the cattle are