It was difficult to procure porters; therefore I left all my effects at
my camp in charge of two of my men, and I determined to travel light,
without the tent, and to take little beyond ammunition and cooking
utensils. Ibrahim left forty- five men in his zareeba, and on the 5th of
January we started.
In four days' march we reached the Asua River, and on January 13th
arrived at Shooa, in latitude 3 degrees 4'.
Two days after our arrival at Shooa all of our Obbo porters absconded.
They had heard that we were bound for Kamrasi's country, and having
received exaggerated accounts of his power from the Shooa people, they
had determined upon retreat; thus we were at once unable to proceed,
unless we could procure porters from Shooa. This was exceedingly
difficult, as Kamrasi was well known here, and was not loved. His
country was known as "Quanda," and I at once recognized the corruption
of Speke's "Uganda." The slave woman "Bacheeta," who had formerly given
me in Obbo so much information concerning Kamrasi's country, was to be
our interpreter; but we also had the luck to discover a lad who had
formerly been employed by Mahommed in Faloro, who also spoke the
language of Quanda, and had learned a little Arabic.
I now discovered that the slave woman Bacheeta had formerly been in the
service of a chief named Sali, who had been killed by Kamrasi. Sali was
a friend of Rionga (Kamrasi's greatest enemy), and I had been warned by
Speke not to set foot upon Rionga's territory, or all travelling in
Unyoro would be cut off. I plainly saw that Bacheeta was in favor of
Rionga, as a friend of the murdered Sali, by whom she had had two
children, and that she would most likely tamper with the guide, and that
we should be led to Rionga instead of to Kamrasi. There were "wheels
within wheels."
It was now reported that in the last year, immediately after the
departure of Speke and Grant from Gondokoro, Debono's people had marched
directly to Rionga, allied themselves to him, crossed the Nile with his
people, and had attacked Kamrasi's country, killing about three hundred
of his men, and capturing many slaves. I now understood why they had
deceived me at Gondokoro: they had obtained information of the country
from Speke's people, and had made use of it by immediately attacking
Kamrasi in conjunction with Rionga.
This would be a pleasant introduction for me on entering Unyoro, as
almost immediately after the departure of Speke and Grant, Kamrasi had
been invaded by the very people into whose hands his messengers had
delivered them, when they were guided from Unyoro to the Turks' station
at Faloro. He would naturally have considered that the Turks had been
sent by Speke to attack him; thus the road appeared closed to all
exploration, through the atrocities of Debono's people.
