"He Was Trembling With Nervous Anxiety, And With Some Hesitation He Took His Seat Upon The Divan That Had Been Prepared For Him.

His principal chiefs sat upon skins and carpets arranged upon the ground.

"A crowd of about 2,000 people had accompanied him, making a terrific noise with whistles, horns, and drums. These were now silenced, and the troops formed a guard around the tent to keep the mob at a respectful distance. Every now and then several men of Kabba Rega's body-guard rushed into the crowd and laid about them with bludgeons five feet long, hitting to the right and left. This always chased the people away for a few minutes, until, by degrees, they resumed their position. Everybody was dressed up for a grand occasion, mostly in new clothes of bark- cloth, and many were in skins of wild animals, with their heads fantastically ornamented with the horns of goats or antelopes. The sorcerers were an important element. These rascals, who are the curse of the country, were, as usual, in a curious masquerade with fictitious beards manufactured with a number of bushy cows' tails.

"Kabba Rega was about five feet ten inches in height, and of extremely light complexion. His eyes were very large, but projected in a disagreeable manner. A broad but low forehead and high cheek-bones, added to a large mouth, with rather prominent but exceedingly white teeth, complete the description of his face. His hands were beautifully shaped, and his finger-nails were carefully pared and scrupulously clean. The nails of his feet were equally well attended to. He wore sandals of raw buffalo-hide, but neatly formed, and turned up round the edges.

"His robe of bark-cloth, which completely covered his body, was exquisitely made, and had been manufactured in Uganda, which country is celebrated for this curious production.

"This was Kabba Rega, the son of Kamrasi, the sixteenth king of Unyoro, of the Galla conquerors, a gauche, awkward, undignified lout of twenty years of age, who thought himself a great monarch. He was cowardly, cruel, cunning, and treacherous to the last degree. Not only had he ordered the destruction of his brother, Kabka Miro, but after his death, he had invited all his principal relations to visit him; these he had received with the greatest kindness, and at parting, he had presented them with gifts, together with an escort of his body-guard, called bonosoora, to see them safe home. These men, by the young king's instructions, murdered them all in the high grass during their return journey. By these means he had got rid of troublesome relations, and he now sat securely upon the throne with only one great enemy; this was Rionga, the stanch and determined foe of his father, who had escaped from every treachery, and still lived to defy him in the north-eastern provinces of Unyoro.

"It was easy to understand that he would welcome my arrival with a force sufficiently large to assist him against Rionga, and at the same time to rid him of Suleiman's party.

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