A
Man Of Ruanda Now Informed Us That The Cowrie-Shells, So
Plentiful In That Country, Come There From The Other Or Western
Side, But He Could Not Tell Whence They Were Originally Obtained.
Rumanika then told me Suwarora had been so frightened by the
Watuta, and their boastful threats to demolish Usui bit by bit,
reserving him only as a tit-bit for the end, that he wanted a
plot of ground in Karague to preserve his property in.
26th, 27th, and 28th. - Some other travellers from the north again
informed us that they had heard of Wanguana who attempted to
trade in Gani and Chopi, but were killed by the natives. I now
assured Rumanika that in two or three years he would have a
greater trade with Egypt than he ever could have with Zanzibar;
for when I opened the road, all those men he heard of would swarm
up here to visit him. He, however, only laughed at my folly in
proposing to go to a place of which all I heard was merely that
every stranger who went there was killed. He began to show a
disinclination to allow my going there, and though from the most
friendly intention, this view was alarming, for one word from him
could have ruined my projects. As it was, I feared my followers
might take fright and refuse to advance with me. I thought it
good policy to talk of there being many roads leading through
Africa, so that Rumanika might see he had not got, as he thought,
the sole key to the interior. I told him again of certain views
I once held of coming to see him from the north up the Nile, and
from the east through the Masai. He observed that, "To open
either of those routes, you would require at least two hundred
guns." He would, however, do something when we returned from
Uganda; for as Mtesa followed his advice in everything, so did
Kamrasi, for both held the highest opinion of him.
The conversation then turning on London, and the way men and
carriages moved up the streets like strings of ants on their
migrations, Rumanika said the villages in Ruanda were of enormous
extent, and the people great sportsmen, for they turned out in
multitudes, with small dogs on whose necks were tied bells, and
blowing horns themselves, to hunt leopards. They were, however,
highly superstitious, and would not allow any strangers to enter
their country; for some years ago, when Arabs went there, a great
drought and famine set in, which they attributed to evil
influences brought by them, and, turning them out of their
country, said they would never admit any of their like amongst
them again. I said, in return, I thought his Wanyambo just as
superstitious, for I observed, whilst walking one day, that they
had placed a gourd on the path, and on inquiry found they had
done so to gain the sympathy of all passers-by to their crop
close at hand, which was blighted, imagining that the voice of
the sympathiser heard by the spirits would induce them to relent,
and restore a healthy tone to the crop.
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