It was a grand scene, but a truly terrible one; and I thought, as I looked down on it, that the Waganda were now avenging the dead Wavuma with their own hands, for out of a quarter of a million human beings there must have been an immense number of sick unable to move. Besides these, what numbers of witless women and little ones having lost presence of mind must have perished; and how many must have been trampled down by the rush of such a vast number to escape the conflagration! The wide-leaping, far-reaching tongues of flame voraciously eating the dry, tindery material of the huts, and blown by a strong breeze from the lake, almost took my breath away, and several times I felt as if my very vitals were being scorched; but with heads bent low we charged on blindly, knowing no guide save the instinct of self-preservation. ---------------------------------------------------------------- [_To face page 268._ [Illustration: THE NAPOLEON CHANNEL, LAKE VICTORIA, FROM THE HEIGHTS ABOVE THE RIPON FALLS. FLOTILLA OF THE EMPEROR OF UGANDA CROSSING FROM USOGA TO UGANDA.] (_From a photograph by the Author._) ---------------------------------------------------------------- As soon as an opportunity permitted, I looked after the laggards of my party, and by dint of severity kept them together, but three or four were more than half inclined to give in before we breathed cooler air, and could congratulate ourselves upon our safety. Indignant at such a murderous course, for I mentally taxed Mtesa with this criminal folly, I marched my party far from the route of the Waganda army, and though repeatedly urged by Mtesa to attach myself to his party, I declined to do so until he should explain to me why he had commanded the camp to be fired without giving warning to his people or to myself, his guest. His messenger at once acquitted him of such gross recklessness, and declared that he had arrested several persons suspected of having fired the camp, and that he himself had suffered the loss of goods and women in the flames. I thereupon, glad that he was not the author of the catastrophe, sent my salaams, and a promise to rejoin him at Ugungu, on the Uganda side of the Ripon Falls, which I did on the 18th of October. [Illustration: FISH FOUND IN LAKE VICTORIA. Sama-Moa, in the Nyassa tongue; round, open-mouthed, scaled, and pig-headed-looking creature, 20 inches long. ] CHAPTER XIV. The Legend of the Blameless Priest—The heroes of Uganda—Chwa—Kimera, the giant—Nakivingi—Kibaga, the flying warrior—Ma’anda—Wakinguru, the champion—Kamanya, the conqueror of the Wakedi—Suna, the cruel—His massacre of the Wasoga—Namujurilwa, the Achilles of Uganda—Setuba and his lions—Kasindula the hero, peasant, and premier—Mtesa the mild-eyed.