The chief priest was a most fantastically dressed madman. It is customary before commencing a battle to carry all the potent medicines or charms of Uganda (thus propitiating the dreadful Muzimu or evil spirits) to the monarch, that he may touch or point his forefinger at them. They consist of dead lizards, bits of wood, hide, nails of dead people, claws of animals, and beaks of birds, a hideous miscellany, with mysterious compounds of herbs and leaves carefully enclosed in vessels ornamented with vari-coloured beads. During the battle these wizards and witches chant their incantations, and exhibit their medicines on high before the foe, while the gourd-and-pebble bearers sound a hideous alarum, enough to cause the nerves of any man except an African to relax at once. Mtesa and his army were in full war-paint, and the principal men wore splendid leopard skins over their backs, but the Wasoga bore the palm for splendour of dress and ornate equipments. Ankori the chief and his officers were wonderfully gay. Snow-white ostrich plumes decorated their heads, and lion and leopard skins covered their backs, while their loins were girded with snow-white, long-haired monkey and goat skins; even the staves of their lances were ornamented with feathers and rings of white monkey skin. There was ample time afforded to observe all these things, and to be exceedingly amused and interested in what promised to be an animating scene, before all attention was drawn to and engaged by the battle. The spectators were seated, safe from harm or danger, on the slope of Nakaranga mountain, from the water’s edge to the mountain summit, tier above tier, and rank above rank, in thousands upon thousands. The canoes, having formed line, slowly moved sternwise towards Ingira. The Wavuma were not inactive spectators of this manœuvre, but as yet their warriors had not embarked. They were busy mustering, while those appointed to garrison the island, with the women and children, several thousands in number, sate down on the slopes of the opposite mountain of Ingira Island. The rushes and weeds lining the water’s edge were too tall and thick to enable us to estimate exactly the number of the enemy’s war-canoes, but the brown-coloured prows, long and curving, of a great many were seen thrust out from among the vivid green banana plantations, or arranged on the rising beach of the island beyond its reedy margin.