PRINCE KADÜMA, 99 
ti is assistance and influence were therefore relinquished; and, since the chief 
^as not available, it became evident that none of his people could be obtain d 
for the service of exploration. Without this insight into Eaduma’s life and 
Planners, it would have been a matter for fair speculation whether his wea - 
üess and intemperance, or his dread of the vast lake, were the real causes of 
“is reluctance to accompany me. 
The prince was learned in the names of several countries or villages—but 
yhich they were, I was then ignorant. But if every name he repeated to my 
(“terested ears were the names of real countries, then, I began to think, it 
•“ight 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 
«Qterprise, as Prince Kaduma, his people, Suugoro, and his slaves—who had 
feally only reached Ururi—sketched it to (hem with their superstitious and 
“rude notions of its size. There were, they said, a people dwelling on its 
chores who were gifted with tails ; another who trained enormous and fierce 
^ogs for war ; another a tribe of cannibals, who preferred human flesh to all 
“ther kinds of meat. The lake was so large it would take years to trace its 
®iiores, and who then at the end of that time would remain alive ? Therefore, 
“8 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 
fhe 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 
hfe. Provisions of flour and dried fish, bales of cloth and beads of various 
hinds, odds and ends of small possible necessaries were boxed, and she was 
^ioclarcd, at last, to be only waiting for her crew. “ Would any one volunteer 
^ accomjmriy 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 
^iieir master round the sea.” 
All were again dumb. Appealed to individually, each said he knew nothing 
“f sea life ; each man frankly declared himself a terrible coward on water. 
“Then, what am I to do?” 
Manwa Sera said :— 
“Master, have done with these questions. Command your party. All 
your people are your children, and they will not disobey you. While you 
“sk them as a friend, no one will offer his services. Command them, and they 
"'ill all go.” 
So I selected a chief. Wadi Safeni—the son of Safeni—and told him to pick 
out the elect of the young men. Wadi Safeni chose men who knew nothing 
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