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.
18th. - To-day I visited Kaggao with my medicine-chest. He had a
local disease, which he said came to him by magic, though a
different cause was sufficiently obvious, and wanted medicine
such as I gave Mkuenda, who reported that I gave him a most
wonderful draught. Unfortunately I had nothing suitable to give
my new patient, but cautioned him to have a care lest contagion
should run throughout his immense establishment, and explained
the whole of the circumstances to him. Still he was not
satisfied; he would give me slaves, cows, or ivory, if I would
only cure him. He was a very great man, as I could see, with
numerous houses, numerous wives, and plenty of everything, so
that it was ill-becoming of him to be without his usual habits.
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