I Knew This Was All Humbug, Of Course, And I Told Him
So; But It Was Of No Use, And I Was Compelled To Halt.
On the 23d another officer, named Maribu, came to me and said,
Mtesa, having heard that Grant was left sick behind at Karague,
had given him orders to go there and fetch him, whether sick or
well, for Mtesa was most anxious to see white men.
Hearing this
I at once wrote to Grant, begging him to come on if he could do
so, and to bring with him all the best of my property, or as much
as he could of it, as I now saw there was more cunning humbug
than honesty in what Rumanika had told me about the impossibility
of our going north from Uganda, as well as in his saying sick men
could not go into Uganda, and donkeys without trousers would not
be admitted there, because they were considered indecent. If he
was not well enough to move, I advised him to wait there until I
reached Mtesa's, when I would either go up the lake and Kitangule
to fetch him away, or would make the king send boats for him,
which I more expressly wished, as it would tend to give us a much
better knowledge of the lake.
Maula now came again, after receiving repeated and angry
messages, and I forced him to make a move. He led me straight up
to his home, a very nice place, in which he gave me a very large,
clean, and comfortable hut - had no end of plantains brought for
me and my men - and said, "Now you have really entered the kingdom
of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food. At every
place that you stop for the day, the officer in charge will bring
you plantains, otherwise your men can help themselves in the
gardens, for such are the laws of the land when a king's guest
travels in it. Any one found selling anything to either yourself
or your men would be punished." Accordingly, I stopped the daily
issue of beads; but no sooner had I done so, than all my men
declared they could not eat plantains. It was all very well,
they said, for the Waganda to do so, because they were used to
it, but it did not satisfy their hunger.
Maula, all smirks and smiles, on seeing me order the things out
for the march, begged I would have patience, and wait till the
messenger returned from the king; it would not take more than ten
days at the most. Much annoyed at this nonsense, I ordered my
tent to be pitched. I refused all Maula's plantains, and gave my
men beads to buy grain with; and, finding it necessary to get up
some indignation, said I would not stand being chained like a
dog; if he would not go on ahead, I should go without him. Maula
then said he would go to a friend's and come back again.
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