A WAGANDA “SPELL.” 47 vant, and who understands English, has for more than two years acted as dragoman and secretary to Mtésa. His name is Mita Dallington.

So we are to rest! There hangs in my house, carefully wrapped up in bark cloth, the vertebral column of a python ; a piece of it bound round the bodies of little children is said to be an infallible preventive of colic and convulsions. A deluge of rain occupied the remainder of the day and the night. When I asked my leaders to-day why Muambia’s land is totally depopulated, they said that there was in Uganda a powerful magic called kampédi, and that when it spreads over a land it depopulates it far and near. When I asked if this magic affected the goats, cows, and house utensils, both gentle-. men were silent. From this it appears as if Mtésa always enveloped his plundering expeditions with a veil of mystery: faith or superstition does indeed always go hand in hand with cruelty.

The signals for marching had been sounding since daybreak, but the rain prevented our starting for a long time, and it was late when we were again making our way up and down hill, on a road between blocks of granite. Here and there tall grass, over ten feet high, formed a living wall on both sides of the road; but narrow paths indicated the presence of gardens and plantations behind this wall. A broad, deep swamp took up a long time, and was passed through with great difficulty, and then began the ascent which leads to the village of Kiti, near which rises the mountain of the same name. The descent led to the little stream Babinge, which was, however, swollen very high by the long-continued rain. Its ever-flowing waters empty themselves into the Mianja, the real source of the great Khor Kafu. A little further on I found all my porters collected in a banana grove, near some houses, each with a huge piece of sugar-cane in the hand, and when I requested them to move on, I was told that it was impossible, because the country in front of us belonged tothe king’s wives, and that no one was allowed to pass the night there, which, being interpreted, probably means that no one is permitted to plunder there. We were in consequence obliged to remain here, and as our provisions were exhausted, I requested my