Between Usui and Karagwe was one of those no man’s lands, which at times are such a relief to the harassed traveller,--a land in which he can enjoy the beauty of the landscapes, the excitement of sport in complete freedom from the harassing attentions of Negro tribes. In this lovely wilderness they were greeted by officers sent to their assistance by Rumanika, who said, “Rumanika has ordered us to bring you to his palace at once, and wherever you stop a day, the village officers are instructed to supply you with food at the King’s expense; for there are no taxes gathered from strangers in the Kingdom of Karagwe.” Speke noted the little lake of Urigi, and learned from the natives that this was the remains of a much larger sheet of water. They declared, in fact, that this lake had formerly extended far to the southwards in the direction of Tanganyika, having been at one time a considerable gulf of the Victoria Nyanza. For the first time since leaving the coast they travelled day after day through beautiful and attractive scenery, in which rhinoceroses, both “white” and black, and herds of hartebeest mingled with the splendid long-horned cattle of the natives. Speke and Grant shot several square-lipped “white” rhinoceroses. (Stanley subsequently did the same in this country of Karagwe. Though it has since been shot on the Upper Nile, this creature is now becoming extinct in East Equatorial Africa.) “Leaving the valley of Uthenja, we rose over the spur of Nyamwara, and found we had attained the delightful altitude of five thousand feet. Oh, how we enjoyed it!--every one feeling so happy at the prospect of meeting the good king Rumanika. Rumanika the king and his brother Nyanaji were both of them men of noble appearance and size.... They had fine oval faces, large eyes, and high noses, denoting the best blood of Abyssinia. Having shaken hands in true English style, which is the peculiar custom of the men of this country, the ever-smiling Rumanika begged us to be seated on the ground opposite to him, and at once wished to know what we thought of Karagwe, for it had struck him his mountains were the finest in the world; and the lake, too, did we not admire it?” [Illustration: A HIMA OF MPORORO, NEAR KARAGWE.] Speke subsequently went to see the queens and princesses of this royal family, who, by means of a milk diet, were kept immoderately fat. Of one of them he writes: “She could not rise; and so large were her arms that between the joints the flesh hung down like large, stuffed puddings. Then in came their children, all models of the Abyssinian type of beauty, and as polite in their manners as thoroughbred gentlemen.”