‘He died twelve days ago, sir, and lies there,’ pointing to a new mound of earth near the landing-place. I must pass briefly over many months, replete with adventures, sorrow, suffering, perils by flood and field. Within a few weeks, the King of Ukerewe having furnished me with canoes, I transported the expedition across the lake from its south-eastern to its north-western extremity, with a view to explore Lake Albert. In passing by the pirate island of Bumbireh, the natives again challenged us to pass by them without their permission; and as that permission would not be given, I attacked the island, capturing the King and two of the principal chiefs, and passed on to Uganda. Before I could obtain any assistance from Mtesa, I had to visit him once again. Being at war with the Wavuma, he detained me several months. The good work I had commenced was resumed. I translated for him sufficient out of the Bible to form an abridged sacred history, wherein the Gospel of St. Luke was given entire. When my work of translation was complete, Mtesa mustered all his principal chiefs and officers, and after a long discourse, in which he explained his state of mind prior to my arrival, he said:-- ‘Now I want you, my chiefs and soldiers, to tell me what we shall do. Shall we believe in Jesus, or in Mohammed?’ One chief said, ‘Let us take that which is the best.’ The Prime Minister, with a doubtful manner, replied, ‘We know not which is the best. The Arabs say their book is the best, while the white man claims that his book is the best. How can we know which speaks the truth?’ The courtly steward of the palace said, ‘When Mtesa became a son of Islam, he taught me, and I became one. If my master says he taught me wrong, now, having more knowledge, he can teach me right.’ Mtesa then proceeded to unfold his reasons for his belief that the white man’s book must be the true book, basing them principally upon the difference of conduct he had observed between the Arabs and the whites. The comparisons he so eloquently drew for them were in all points so favourable to the whites, that the chiefs unanimously gave their promise to accept the Christians’ Bible, and to conform, as they were taught, to the Christian religion. To establish them in the new faith which they had embraced, it only rested with me to release Darlington, my young assistant-translator, from my service, that he might keep the words of the Holy Book green in their hearts, until the arrival of a Christian mission from England. Seldom was an appeal of this nature so promptly acceded to, as Mtesa’s appeal that pastors and teachers should be sent to his country; for £14,000 was subscribed in a short time for the equipment of a Missionary expedition, under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society. Three months before we reached the Atlantic Ocean, the missionaries for Uganda arrived at Zanzibar, the island we had left nineteen months previously.[25]