It Was The Effect Of Desertions Like These That
Prevented Any White Men Visiting These Countries.
This said, the
Waganda all left us, taking with them twenty-eight Wanguana,
armed with twenty-two carbines.
Amongst them was the wretched
governess, Manamaka, who had always thought me a wonderful
magician, because I possessed, in her belief, an extraordinary
power in inclining all the black kings' hearts to me, and induced
them to give the roads no one before of my colour had ever
attempted to use.
With a following reduced to twenty men, armed with fourteen
carbines, I now wished to start for Kamrasi's, but had not even
sufficient force to lift the loads. A little while elapsed, and
a party of fifty Wanyoro rushed wildly into camp, with their
spears uplifted, and looked for the Waganda, but found them gone.
The athletic Kajunju, it transpired, had returned to Kamrasi's,
told him our story, and received orders to snatch us away from
the Waganda by force, for the great Mkamma, or king, was most
anxious to see his white visitors; such men had never entered
Unyoro before, and neither his father nor his father's fathers
had ever been treated with such a visitation; therefore he had
sent on these fifty men to fall by surprise on the Waganda, and
secure us. But again, in a little while, about 10 a.m., Kajunju,
in the same wild manner, at the head of 150 warriors, with the
soldier's badge - a piece of mbugu or plantain-leaf tied round
their heads, and a leather sheath on their spear-heads, tufted
with cow's-tail - rushed in exultingly, having found, to their
delight, that there was no one left to fight with, and that they
had gained an easy victory. They were certainly a wild set of
ragamuffins - as different as possible from the smart, well-
dressed, quick-of-speech Waganda as could be, and anything but
prepossessing to our eyes. However, they had done their work,
and I offered them a cow, wishing to have it shot before them;
but the chief men, probably wishing the whole animal to
themselves, took it alive, saying the men were all the king's
servants, and therefore could not touch a morsel.
Kamrasi expected us to advance next day, when some men would go
on ahead to announce our arrival, and bring a letter which was
brought with beads by Gani before Baraka's arrival here. It was
shown to Baraka in the hope that we would come by the Karague
route, but not to Mabruki, because he came from Uganda. Kidgwiga
informed us that Kamrasi never retaliated on Mtesa when he lifted
Unyoro cows, though the Waganda keep their cattle on the border -
which simply meant that he had not the power of doing so. The
twenty remaining Wanguana, conversing over the sudden scheme of
the deserters, proposed, on one side, sending for them, as, had
they seen the Wanyoro arrive, they would have changed their
minds; but the other side said, "What!
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