such impurities! It will be apparent, then, that, though the Prince of Kagehyi is a well-meaning and well-disposed creature, he possessed an infirmity that rendered him incapable of rendering me that service which he had himself suggested to me. He promised that he would accompany me in my exploration of Lake Victoria! It is to be doubted, after acquiring such a knowledge of his character, whether his intentions could be fulfilled. Yet he informed me that he had visited Ukerewé, Ururi, and Ugeyeya, and would, for a consideration, place himself at my disposal. The consideration was ready, but Kaduma, unfortunately for me, I saw, could not be ready within a decade! Hopes of his assistance and influence were therefore relinquished; and, since the chief was not available, it became evident that none of his people could be obtained for the service of exploration. Without this insight into Kaduma’s life and manners, it would have been a matter for fair speculation whether his weakness and intemperance, or his dread of the vast lake, were the real causes of his reluctance to accompany me. The prince was learned in the names of several countries or villages—but which they were, I was then ignorant. But if every name he repeated to my interested ears were the names of real countries, then, I began to think, it might be true, as he himself believed, that the lake was so large that its exploration would occupy years. Nearly all the Wangwana, while the _Lady Alice_ was being prepared for sea, were impressed with the vastness of the enterprise, as Prince Kaduma, his people, Sungoro, and his slaves—who had really only reached Ururi—sketched it to them with their superstitious and crude notions of its size. There were, they said, a people dwelling on its shores who were gifted with tails; another who trained enormous and fierce dogs for war; another a tribe of cannibals, who preferred human flesh to all other kinds of meat. The lake was so large it would take years to trace its shores, and who then at the end of that time would remain alive? Therefore, as I expected, there were no volunteers for the exploration of the Great Lake. Its opposite shores, from their very vagueness of outline, and its people, from the distorting fogs of misrepresentation through which we saw them, only heightened the fears of my men as to the dangers which filled the prospect. Within seven days the boat was ready, and strengthened for a rough sea life. Provisions of flour and dried fish, bales of cloth and beads of various kinds, odds and ends of small possible necessaries were boxed, and she was declared, at last, to be only waiting for her crew. “Would any one volunteer to accompany me?” A dead silence ensued. “Not for rewards and extra pay?” Another dead silence: no one would volunteer. “Yet I must,” said I, “depart. Will you let me go alone?” “No.” “What then? Show me my braves—those men who freely enlist to follow their master round the sea.”