"Wara-Sura! Wara-Sura! What men are these? We never heard of the name before. Whence are they?" &c., &c., and so on unceasingly for three mortal hours in the hot sun. Our cajolings and our winsomest smiles began to appear of effect, but they suddenly assumed moodiness, and expressed their suspicion in the harsh, rasping language of Unyoro, which grated horribly on the hearing. In the end our effort was a complete failure. We had, unknown to ourselves, incurred their suspicion by speaking too kindly of Unyoro and of Kabba Rega, who, we found later, was their mortal enemy. They would not accept our friendship, nor make blood-brotherhood, nor accept even a gift. They would give us water to drink, and they would show the path along the lake. "You seek a white man, you say. We hear there is one at Kabba Rega's (Casati). Many, many years ago a white man came from the north in a smoke-boat (Mason Bey), but he went away, but that was when we were children. There has been no strange boat on our waters since. We hear of strange people being at Buswa (Mswa), but that is a long way from here. There northward along the lake lies your way. All the wicked people come from there. We never heard any good of men who came in from the Ituri either. The Wara-Sura sometimes come from there." They condescended to show us the path leading along the shore of the lake, and then stood aside on the plain, bidding us, in not unfriendly tones, to take heed of ourselves, but not a single article for their service would they accept. Wondering at their extraordinary manner, and without a single legitimate excuse to quarrel with them, we proceeded on our way meditatively, with most unhappy feelings. Pondering upon the strange dead stop to that hopefulness which had hitherto animated us, it struck us that a more heartless outlook never confronted an explorer in wild Africa than that which was now so abruptly revealed to us. From the date of leaving England, January 21, 1887, to this date of 14th December, it never dawned on us that at the very goal we might be baffled so completely as we were now. There was only one comfort, however, in all this; there was henceforward no incertitude. We had hoped to have met news of the Pasha here. A governor of a province, with two steamers, life-boats, and canoes, and thousands of people we had imagined would have been known everywhere on such a small lake as the Albert, which required only two days' steaming from end to end. He could not, or he would not, leave Wadelai, or he knew nothing yet of our coming.[J] When compelled through excess of weakness to leave our steel boat at Ipoto, we had hoped one of three things: either that the Pasha, warned by me of my coming, would have prepared the natives for our appearance, or that we could purchase or make a canoe of our own. The Pasha had never visited the south end of the lake; there was no canoe to be obtained, nor was there any tree out of which one could be made.