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workmanship (probably presents from General Gordon), and copper pots and water jars of Zanzibar (Hindu) make, with copper drums made in Buganda by coast artisans. These were to be manufactured into a coffin.

Next morning, he went off to Rusaka, the residence of the late queen-mother, some five miles distant, to measure the body. Much objection was made by the royal ladies there, at his going in to measure the corpse, but his friend, the chief Kyimbugwe, was the master of the ceremonies, and he explained that Mackay had been commissioned by the king to do so. Mackay was, however, somewhat taken aback, when he was told by some of the other chiefs that he ought not to have measured the corpse, but the dimensions of the grave, and have made the coffins to fit the latter. He told them that there was not copper enough in the land to make a box larger than what was necessary for the body alone, but that, if there were, he would willingly make one as large as a mountain, but that, as it was, he would make the inner coffins to suit the body, and the outer one as large as a house if they liked.

The grave was a huge pit, some twenty feet by fifteen feet at the mouth, and about thirty feet deep. It was dug in the centre of the late Queen's chief house, an enormous hut some hundred and fifty feet in diameter, as usual all roof, with no walls, and a perfect forest of poles inside, the centre ones being large enough for frigate masts. Rusaka stands on a hill of dry sandstone, clay, and gravel. It was well that