Page:Two kings of Uganda.djvu/55

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MY CHRISTMAS PUDDING.
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waving their tails and glaring at their strange opponent. It was an awful moment. At last the divinity which hedges the courageous conquered the lions, and they crept away abashed. Now it was Hannington's turn to be the pursuer, so waving his arms and shouting, he drove them away, and actually carried off the dead carcase of the fallen whelp.

Christmas was now drawing on, and although we were all of us more or less ill with fever and ague, we determined not to be done out of our Christmas dinner. Hannington has humorously described my pudding with its weevily flour and fermented raisins, but these drawbacks were in some degree counterbalanced by fresh eggs and good currants and suet and native meal. At any rate it was a great treat, and a Christmas feast of plum pudding is a national custom which every Englishman likes to observe.

While we were at Musalala, roma, King of Buzinja, a country on the south-west of the Nyanza, sent messengers and presents inviting us to visit him and promising to provide canoes to take us on to Uganda. Hannington thought it best to accept his offer, and as we were dissatisfied with our present situation, it was arranged that I should go with him and Gordon to Roma's capital to look out for a suitable site near the lake for the new station at the south of the Nyanza : and that Wise should stay behind to look after the camp.

The journey to Roma's took us quite nine days, and

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