Although my quinine had been long since exhausted, I had reserved ten grains to enable me to start in case the fever should attack me at the time of departure.

I now swallowed my last dose.
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.