At First She Came Trotting After Me,
Then Timidly Paused, Then Advanced, And, As I Approached, Stood
Spellbound At My Remarkable Appearance.
At last recovering
herself, she woh-wohed with all the coquetry of a Mganda woman,
and a flirtation followed; she must see my hair, my watch, the
contents of my pockets - everything; but that was not enough.
I
waved adieu, but still she followed. I offered my arm, showing
her how to take it in European fashion, and we walked along to
the surprise of everybody, as if we had been in Hyde Park rather
than in Central Africa, flirting and coquetting all the way. I
was surprised that no one came to prevent her forwardness; but
not till I almost reached home did any one appear; and then, with
great scolding, she was ordered to return - not, however, without
her begging I would call in and see her on some future occasion,
when she would like to give me some pombe.
14th. - As conflicting reports came about Grant, the king very
courteously, at my request, forwarded letters to him. I passed
the day in distilling pombe, and the evening in calling on Mrs
Dumba, with Meri, Kahala, Lugoi, and a troop of Wanyamuezi women.
She was very agreeable; but as her husband was attending the
palace, could not give pombe, and instead gave my female escort
sundry baskets of plaintains and potatoes, signifying a dinner,
and walked half-way home, flirting with me as before.
15th - I called on the king with all the spirits I had made, as
well as the saccharine residue. We found him holding a levee,
and receiving his offerings of a batch of girls, cows, goats, and
other things of an ordinary nature. One of the goats presented
gave me an opportunity of hearing one of the strangest stories I
had yet heard in this strange country: it was a fine for
attempted regicide, which happened yesterday, when a boy, finding
the king alone, which is very unusual, walked up to him and
threatened to kill him, because, he said, he took the lives of
men unjustly. The king explained by description and pantomime
how the affair passed. When the youth attacked him he had in his
hand the revolving pistol I had given him, and showed us, holding
the pistol to his cheek, how he had presented the muzzle to the
boy, which, though it was unloaded, so frightened him that he ran
away. All the courtiers n'yanzigged vigorously for the
condescension of the king in telling the story. There must have
been some special reason why, in a court where trifling breaches
of etiquette were punished with a cruel death, so grave a crime
should have been so leniently dealt with; but I could not get at
the bottom of the affair. The culprit, a good-looking young
fellow of sixteen or seventeen, who brought in the goat, made his
n'yanzigs, stroked the goat and his own face with his hands,
n'yanzigged again with prostrations, and retired.
After this scene, officers announced the startling fact that two
white men had been seen at Kamrasi's, one with a beard like
myself, the other smooth-faced. I jumped at this news, and said,
"Of course, they are there; do let me send a letter to them." I
believed it to be Petherick and a companion whom I knew he was to
bring with him. The king, however, damped my ardour by saying
the information was not perfect, and we must wait until certain
Wakungu, whom he sent to search in Unyoro, returned.
16th. - The regions about the palace were all in a state of
commotion to-day, men and women running for their lives in all
directions, followed by Wakungu and their retainers. The cause
of all this commotion was a royal order to seize sundry
refractory Wakungu, with their property, wives, concubines - if
such a distinction can be made in this country - and families all
together. At the palace Mtesa had a musical party, playing the
flute occasionally himself. After this he called me aside, and
said, "Now, Bana, I wish you would instruct me, as you have often
proposed doing, for I wish to learn everything, though I have
little opportunity for doing so." Not knowing what was uppermost
in his mind, I begged him to put whatever questions he liked, and
he should be answered seriatim - hoping to find him inquisitive
on foreign matters; but nothing was more foreign to his mind:
none of his countrymen ever seemed to think beyond the sphere of
Uganda.
The whole conversation turned on medicines, or the cause and
effects of diseases. Cholera, for instance, very much affected
the land at certain seasons, creating much mortality, and
vanishing again as mysteriously as it came. What brought this
scourge? and what would cure it? Supposing a man had a headache,
what should he take for it? or a leg ache, or a stomach-ache, or
itch; in fact, going the rounds of every disease he knew, until,
exhausting the ordinary complaints, he went into particulars in
which he was personally much interested; but I was unfortunately
unable to prescribe medicines which produce the physical
phenomenon next to his heart.
17th. - I called upon the king by appointment, and found a large
court, where the Wakungu caught yesterday, and sentenced to
execution, received their reprieve on paying fines of cattle and
young damsels - their daughters. A variety of charms, amongst
which were some bits of stick strung on leather and covered with
serpent-skin, were presented and approved of. Kaggao, a large
district officer, considered the second in rank here, received
permission for me to call upon him with my medicines. I pressed
the king again to send men with mine to Kamrasi's to call
Petherick. At first he objected that they would be killed, but
finally he yielded, and appointed Budja, his Unyoro ambassador,
for the service. Then, breaking up the court, he retired with a
select party of Wakungu, headed by the Kamraviona, and opened a
conversation on the subject which is ever uppermost with the king
and his courtiers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 132 of 207
Words from 134167 to 135193
of 210958
