If I Chose To Lose My Life, It Was No Business Of Theirs, But
They Would Not Be Witness To It.
They all wanted their discharge
at once; they would not run away, but must have a letter of
satisfaction, and then they would go back to their homes at
Zanzibar.
But when they found they lost all their arguments and
could not move me, they said they would go back for Grant, but
when they had done that duty, then they would take their leave.
10th to 15th. - This business being at last settled, I wrote to
Grant on the subject, and sent all the men off who were not sick.
Thinking then how I could best cure the disease that was keeping
me down, as I found the blister of no use, I tried to stick a
packing needle, used as a seton, into my side; but finding it was
not sharp enough, in such weak hands a mine, to go through my
skin, I got Baraka to try; and he failing too, I then made him
fire me, for the coughing was so incessant I could get no sleep
at night. I had now nothing whatever to think of but making
dodges for lying easy, and for relieving my pains, or else for
cooking strong broths to give me strength, for my legs were
reduced to the appearance of pipe-sticks, until the 15th, when
Baraka, in the same doleful manner as in Sorombo, came to me and
said he had something to communicate, which was so terrible, if I
heard it I should give up the march. Lumeresi was his authority,
but he would not tell it until Grant arrive. I said to him, "Let
us wait till Grant arrives; we shall then have some one with us
who won't shrink from whispers" - meaning Bombay; and so I let the
matter drop for the time being. But when Grant came, we had it
out of him, and found this terrible mystery all hung on
Lumeresi's prognostications that we never should get through Usui
with so little cloth.
16th to 19th. - At night, I had such a terrible air-catching fit,
and made such a noise whilst trying to fill my lungs, that it
alarmed all the camp, so much so that my men rushed into my tent
to see if I was dying. Lumeresi, in the morning, then went on a
visiting excursion into the district, but no sooner left than the
chief of Isamiro, whose place lies close to the N'yanza, came
here to visit him (17th); but after waiting a day to make friends
with me, he departed (18th), as I heard afterwards, to tell his
great Mhuma chief, Rohinda, the ruler of Ukhanga, to which
district this state of Bogue belongs, what sort of presents I had
given to Lumeresi. He was, in fact, a spy whom Rohinda had sent
to ascertain what exactions had been made from me, as he, being
the great chief, was entitled to the most of them himself.
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