Having heard that Mwanga had become a Christian, and been baptised by the French missionaries during his stay with them in Bukumbi, the Christians tendered their allegiance to him, and he came to Uddu to see them, in company with an English trader named Stokes; but, as the means of retaking the throne were small, Mwanga took possession of an island not far from the Murchison Bay, and there he remains with about 250 guns, while Stokes, it is believed, had returned to the coast with ivory to purchase rifles and ammunition at Zanzibar in the cause of Mwanga. Up to this date the mainland of Uganda was under Karema, while the islands recognised Mwanga, and the entire flotilla of Uganda, mustering several hundred canoes, was at the disposition of the latter. They then informed me that their appearance in my camp was due to the fact that while at the capital they had heard of the arrival of white men, and they had been sent by their compatriots to solicit our assistance to recover the throne of Uganda for Mwanga. Now, as this king had won an unenviable reputation for his excesses, debaucheries, his executions of Christians in the most vile and barbarous manner, and as he was guilty of causing Luba, of Usoga, to murder Bishop Hannington and massacre over sixty of his poor Zanzibari followers, though the story of Zachariah and Samuel was clear enough, and no doubt true, there were strong reasons why I could not at once place implicit credence in the conversion and penitence of Mwanga, or even accept with perfect faith the revelations of the converts. I had too intimate a knowledge of the fraudulent duplicity of Waganda, and their remarkable gifts for dissimulation, to rush at this prospective adventure; and even if I were inclined to accept the mission of reinstating Mwanga, the unfulfilled duties of escorting the Pasha, and his friend Casati, and the Egyptians, and their followers to the sea prohibited all thoughts of it. But to African natives it is not so easy to explain why their impulsive wishes cannot be gratified; and if Kiganda nature remained anything similar to what I was acquainted with in 1876, the Waganda were quite capable of intriguing with Antari to interrupt my march. No readers of my chapters on the Waganda in ‘Through the Dark Continent’ will doubt this statement. I therefore informed Zachariah and Samuel that I should think of the matter, and give them my final answer on reaching some place near the Alexandra Nile, where supplies of food could be found sufficient for the party which I should be obliged to leave behind in the event of my conforming to their wish, and that it would be well for them to go back to the Waganda, ascertain where Mwanga was at that time, and whether there was any news of Mr. Stokes.