124 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

fields of dhurra, sem-sem, and telaboon. The huts were well built with mud walls, and had most curious j)ictures of leopards painted on the walls both inside and out ; the tails were drawn as thick as the bodies, and I noticed in one place that where a hole in the wall came in the line of the tail, the artist had made the tail go round and beyond the window in straight lines. Large black squares on the body of the animal represented the spots.

Near this place, when on the march, I lost sight of my negro servant Mahoom ; I had never before missed him on the march durini the whole time he had been with me, that is from August 1878, so when he returned after an absence of some hours, I inquired what had happened to him. He told me that we had been passing near to his old home, from which, after killing his father, the slave-dealers had taken him and his mother, and being so near he wished to look at the hut again ; but he found it all broken down and deserted. A little later, after passing Madi, he told me that he had inquired after his mother, and heard that she was living in a village near Madi, but he would not go to see her, for he said, " I feared if I saw my mother I should want to stay with her, and I must not leave you."

This is another proof, if one be needed, of the faithful and strong attachment of Africans to those who treat them kindly.

Leaving Kadru early the next day, September 25,