92 _.. ,A DESCRIPTION OF THE WANYORO.

-Unyoéro once formed, with Uséga, Uganda, Uddu, and Karagwa, one great country inhabited by the Wichwézi. Then, people with a white skin came from the far north-east, and crossed the river (Somerset Nile). Their number was very creat, and the inhabitants were afraid of them, for the white people were valiabantu (man-eaters). When the strangers had forded the river, they assembled in Matyum, a place still existing to the south-east of Mrul, and determined to send a column to Unyoro, and another to the south (Uganda, &c.) to take possession of these countries. The intruders called themselves ‘‘ Wawitu,” people of Witu, a name still given to the ruling families; but the people called them ‘‘ Wahtma,” men of the north; in Uganda also “ Walindi.” They were and are herdsmen, whereas the Wichwézi were cultivators of the soil. As the Wawitu continually advanced, the Wichwézi retired before them farther to the west, many of them being drowned in the Mwutan-Nzigé (slayer of locusts) or Albert Lake, because they possessed no boats. ‘The remainder were enslaved, and from their intermixture with the new comers sprang the present light-coloured race. Where the immigrants have kept their race pure, they are still quite white, as in Toru and Gambalagala; where the Wichwézi have remained pure—and many of them still wander over the country as minstrels and magicians—they are quite black. The immigrants adopted the language of the aborigines, but to the present day speak among themselves the language of the Wahuma. In Unyoro the name Wichwézi is now synonymous with bondman, just as in Uganda the word “ Muddu” (inhabitants of Uddu), now denotes a slave. I give the foregoing narrative exactly as I have heard it in conversation here, and at the same time I am constrained to do full justice to the account given by my predecessor, Speke, whose work is beyond all praise.

In primeval times, say the Wanyéro, people were numerous on the earth. They never died, but lived for ever. But as they became presumptuous, and offered no gifts to the “ great Magician,” who rules the destinies of men, he grew angry, and, throwing the whole vault of heaven down upon the earth, killed them all. But in order not to leave the earth desolate, the “oreat Magician” sent down a man and a woman “from oy