272 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

they were members of a party of French Eomanists, who had been sent by the Archbishop of Algiers to begin a mission in Uganda. The party had come via Zanzibar, and having reached Kagei in Usukuma, these two had come on in some Uganda canoes, which they found there, to ask Mtesa's permission to settle in his country, and to procure canoes to bring on the remainder of their party and goods to Uganda, a request which was ultimately granted by Mtesa.

Our new house, which was situated in the same compound as the old one, progressed but slowly, and it was not till towards the end of April that we were able to move into it.

Meanwhile most of us were busy working at various employments. Felkin went frequently to see the king, and two or more of us were almost daily at the palace. A small printing press had been brought from England by the last party, and we were constantly at work with this, printing off the vocabularies and lists of words of the Uganda language which I had collected for the use of the members of the mission. Almost every day, also, we worked at the new house or in the garden, which had been rather neglected, a certain amount of daily manual labour being necessary to health, besides setting a good example to the natives, who look upon manual labour as derogatory to the dignity of men, and fit only for women and slaves. We re-