Behind us the land sloped gradually for thirty or forty miles toward a sharp escarpment that overlooked the level land beside the lake.  At times between the hills and trees we could glimpse Nyanza itself, looking like the vast rim of forever, mysterious and calm.  In front of us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls, piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky rested.  In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work—­marrying and giving in marriage—­fighting and running away—­eating and drinking and watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet potatoes—­without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages, missionaries, law and commerce soon to come.

Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things.  We came very close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them.

Schillingschen’s tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt.  There was the risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling.  We gagged him as soon as I talked of the danger of that.

Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me.  Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without milk, and the sight of Schillingschen’s distant campfire with a great pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white man’s food.  They and I were for supping as soon as possible from the German’s provender, and sleeping under his canvas roof.

But Fred and Will insisted on caution, claiming reasonably that surprise would be infinitely easier after dark.  It was unlikely that Schillingschen would post any sentries, and not much matter if he did.  His knowledge of natives and natural air of authority made him quite safe among any but the wildest, and these were a comparatively peaceful folk.  In all probability he would sit and read by candle light, with his boys all snoring a hundred yards away.  There was no making Fred and Will see the virtue of my contention that a sudden attack while his boys were scattered all about among the villages would be just as likely to succeed; so we settled down to wait where we were with what patience we could summon.

It was a miserable, hungry business, under a blazing hot sky, packed tightly together among men who objected to our smell as strongly as we to theirs.  It is the fixed opinion of all black people that the white man smells like “bad water”; and no word seems discoverable that will quite return the compliment.  That afternoon was reminiscent of the long days on the dhow, when nobody could move without disturbing everybody else, and we all breathed the same hot mixed stench over and over.