He Was Shy At First, And
All The People Laughed At My Handling Royalty Like A Schoolboy;
But He Soon
Took to it very good-naturedly, when I gave him my
silk necktie and gold crest-ring, explaining their value,
Which
he could not comprehend, and telling him we gentlemen prided
ourselves on never wearing brass or copper.
He now begged hard for shot; but I told him again his only chance
of getting any lay in opening the road onwards; it was on this
account, I said, I had come to see him to-day. He answered, "I
am going to send an army to Usoga to force the way from where
your men were turned back." But this, I said, would not do for
me, as I saw his people travelled like geese, not knowing the
direction of Gani, or where they were going to when sent. I
proposed that if he would call all his travelling men of
experience together, I would explain matters to them by a map I
had brought; for I should never be content till I saw Petherick.
The map was then produced. He seemed to comprehend it
immediately, and assembled the desired Wakungu; but, to my
mortification, he kept all the conversation to himself, Waganda
fashion; spoke a lot of nonsense; and then asked his men what
they thought had better be done. The sages replied, "Oh, make
friends, and do the matter gently." But the king proudly raised
his head, laughed them to scorn, and said, "Make friends with men
who have crossed their spears with us already! Nonsense! they
would only laugh at us; the Uganda spear alone shall do it."
Hearing this bravado, the Kamraviona, the pages, and the elders,
all rose to a man, with their sticks, and came charging at their
king, swearing they would carry out his wished with their lives.
The meeting now broke up in the usual unsatisfactory, unfinished
manner, by the king rising and walking away, whilst I returned
with the Kamraviona, who begged for ten more blue eggs in
addition to my present to make a full necklace, and told my men
to call upon him in the morning, when he would give me anything I
wished to eat. Bombay was then ordered to describe what sort of
food I lived on usually; when, Mganda fashion, he broke a stick
into ten bits, each representing a differing article, and said,
"Bana eat mixed food always"; and explained that stick No. 1
represented beef; No. 2, mutton; No. 3, fowl; No. 4, eggs; No. 5,
fish; No. 6, potatoes; No. 7, plantains; No. 8, pombe; No. 9,
butter; No. 10, flour.
16th. - To-day the king was amusing himself among his women again,
and not to be seen. I sent Bombay with ten blue eggs as a
present for the Kamraviona, intimating my desire to call upon
him. He sent me a goat and ten fowls' eggs, saying he was not
visible to strangers on business to-day. I inferred that he
required the king's permission to receive me. This double
failure was a more serious affair then a mere slight; for my cows
were eaten up, and my men clamouring incessantly for food; and
though they might by orders help themselves "ku n'yangania" - by
seizing - from the Waganda, it hurt my feelings so much to witness
this, that I tried from the first to dispense with it, telling
the king I had always flogged my men for stealing, and now he
turned them into a pack of thieves. I urged that he should either
allow me to purchase rations, or else feed them from the palace
as Rumanika did; but he always turned a deaf ear, or said that
what Sunna his father had introduced it ill became him to
subvert; and unless my men helped themselves they would die of
starvation.
On the present emergency I resolved to call upon the queen. On
reaching the palace, I sent an officer in to announce my arrival,
and sat waiting for the reply fully half an hour, smoking my
pipe, and listening to her in the adjoining court, where music
was playing, and her voice occasionally rent the air with merry
boisterous laughing.
The messenger returned to say no one could approach her sanctuary
or disturb her pleasure at this hour; I must wait and bide my
time, as the Uganda officers do. Whew! Here was another
diplomatic crisis, which had to be dealt with in the usual way.
"I bide my time!" I said, rising in a towering passion, and
thrashing the air with my ramrod walking-stick, before all the
visiting Wakungu, "when the queen has assured me her door would
always be open to me! I shall leave this court at once, and I
solemnly swear I shall never set foot in it again, unless some
apology be made for treating me like a dog." Then, returning
home, I tied up all the presents her majesty had given me in a
bundle, and calling Maula and my men together, told them to take
them where they came from; for it ill became me to keep tokens of
friendship when no friendship existed between us. I came to make
friends with the queen, not to trade or take things from her - and
so forth. The blackguard Maula, laughing, said, "Bana does not
know what he is doing; it is a heinous offence in Uganda sending
presents back; nobody for their lives dare do so to the queen;
her wrath would know no bounds. She will say, "I took a few
trifles from Bana as specimens of his country, but they shall all
go back, and the things the king has received shall go back also,
for we are all of one family'; and then won't Bana be very sorry?
Moreover, Wakungu will be killed by dozens, and lamentations will
reign throughout the court to propitiate the devils who brought
such disasters on them." Bombay, also in a fright, said, "Pray
don't do so; you don't know these savages as we do; there is no
knowing what will happen; it may defeat our journey altogether.
Further, we have had no food these four days, because row
succeeds row.
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