Blandford Weekly News. — 1886-03-20 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

BISHOP HANNINGTONPS MURDER. The Church Missionary Society has just received a letter from the Rev. William Jones, the African who was Bishop Ilannington's companion through the Masai land to Kavirond,i, giving details of the murder of the latter at Unyalla, on the banks of the lake Nyanza, on the 31st o.2tober, 18S:i. The caravan reached Kavirondo on the tith October. The bishop here proposed to go to Uganda with 50 tnen,while the rest of the caravan should remain at Sundu's Village in charge of the Rev. Wiliaani Jones. On the 12th October his lordship, with a party of 50 men and their loads, left. " Oti the tenth day f the bishop's journey the party found themselves in a country which is described as being full of plantain trees. The bishop asked fir the chief of the country. The chief belie informed of the bishop's arrival, came to greet him. The chief then asked the bishop how long it was since he had left the coast. The bishop said three months. The chief then asked the bishop for ten guns and ten barrels of powder as a hongo. The bishop said that he could not corm My with such a high demand of hongo in his friend Mtesa's country. The chief after that went away home rather in a bad mood, and the bishop, instead of the above demand, simply sent him ione barrel of powder and four elbows of cloth. Soon after that the chief sent some men, who pretended to conduct the bishop to a place from whence he could see the lake. The bishop most eagerly followed he men, with only one follower. They had scarcely gone any distance when the bishop and his man were caught and tied, and conveyed to the village. One of the bishop's men happened to be in a place where, to his great horror and surprise, ha saw the bishop and his follower being conducted into the village with their hands tied with ropes, and soon went to inform his companions of it. There was no More order after that. The hi-hop's goods were all ordered to be taken to the chief's home. Some of the cooking materials of the bishop were soon scrambled by the natives. The men, terror stricken, did not know what to do. The bishop was a.ked to wait for an answer from the great chief. For eight days the bishop was in his confinement, while his men were allowed to go about the place. On the eighth day the memenger sent to the great chief returned, and on the same night there was a great deal of drumming and shouting among the natives. When our men asked what was the cause of the shouting among the villager, they were told that the great chief had givea orders that the Mzuuriu should proceed on to Uganda to see the great chief. On the foLowing day all the bishop's men were disarmed in the morning, after which they were caught and tied two by two together, and then confined in different huts. At 5.30 p.m. the bishop and the men welts taken to a bush far away from the village, those who led the bishop leading the way. When they got to the place the bishop and his cook were those %honk they killed brat by shooting them, and the men were speared. Four men, in a most providential manner, escaped from this scene of murder to tell me how the bishop got killed, and also how their companions groaned under the spears of the people they never offended. 01 the four men who escaped, one is a Christian from Frere Town, one is from Itabai, and two are from Zanzibar. Their statement is precisely the same of the bishop's death ; but as to how they made their escapement is a mystery, to which 1 could nit get a satisfactory account from either of them. The report is universally acknowledged by all the surrounding tribes that the white man who went towards the lake is killed."