A BISHOP'S REMAINS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2134, 6 December 1890, Page 3

A BISHOP'S REMAINS.

A. remarkable story comes from Victoria Nyanza of the recovery of the bedy of Bishop Hannington, who was killed by the natives on the nerth-east coast of the lake several years ago. His bones have recently come into the possession of Mr Jackson, agent of the British East African Oorxpany. It is supposed that they have been buried near the shores of the great lake. On the day that Bishop Hannington met his death by spear thrusts from a crowd of savages that surrounded him his body was taken out of the district where the tragedy occurred, for the people feared that the corpse of a white man in their land would bring evil upon them. They took it to the neighboring district, where the people also objected to receiving it, and so it was carried from place to place, each little tribe refusing to permit the dead man's bones to rest in their country. In its journey from place to place along the lake shore a eoastman, who had been a porter in Bishop Hannington's party, aceompanied the body. When at last the body reached Busoga, a considerable distance north of the place where the bishop's party were massacred, the people of that region agreed to permit it to rest there on condition that the coastman remain and take care of it. So they built above the ground a framework such as they use for for smoking meat and fish, and on this platform the body was placed, lhe people gave the Bishop's porter his food to stay near the platform and keep the wild beasts and birds of prey away from it. Early this year Marks, a messenger sent from King Mwanga to Mr Johnson, passed through the region where the Bishop's bones, exposed to the air, were lying on the platform. He told them he would dispose of the bones for them by taking them to the white men if Mr Jackson would give his consent. Thus in a few years after the terrible tragedy occurred, a white man who reached Yictoria Nyanza by tte very route which the Bishop lost hie life in an effort to open, was the means of giving the Bishop's body decent burial.