In A Great Fit Of Indignation He Said, "I Once Killed A
Hundred Wakungu In A Single Day, And Now,
If they won't feed my
guests, I will kill a hundred more; for I know the physic for
bumptiousness." Then,
Sending his brothers away, he asked me to
follow him into the back part of the palace, as he loved me so
much he must show me everything. We walked along under the
umbrella, first looking down one street of huts, then up another,
and, finally, passing the sleeping-chamber, stopped at one
adjoining it. "That hut," said the king, "is the one I sleep in;
no one of my wives dare venture within it unless I call her." He
let me feel immediately that for the distinction conferred on me
in showing me this sacred hut a return was expected. Could I
after that refuse him such a mere trifle as a compass? I told
him he might as well put my eyes out and ask me to walk home, as
take away that little instrument, which could be of no use to
him, as he could not read or understand it. But this only
excited his cupidity; he watched it twirling round and pointing
to the north, and looked and begged again, until, tired of his
importunities, I told him I must wait until the Usoga road was
open before I could part with it, and then the compass would be
nothing to what I would give him.
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