To Talk Over This Matter, The King Invited Us To Meet Him.
We
went as before, minus the flag and firing, and met a similar
reception.
The Gani news was talked over, and we proposed sending
Bombay with a letter at once. I could get no answer; so, to pass
the time, we wished to know from the king's own lips if he had
prevented Baraka from going to Gani, as he had carried orders
from Rumanika as well as from myself to visit Kamrasi, to give
him fifty egg-beads, seventy necklaces of mtende, and seventy
necklaces of kutuamnazi beads, and then to pass on to Gani and
give its chief fifty egg-beads and forty necklaces of kutuamnazi.
Kamrasi replied, "I did not allow him to go, because I heard you
had gone to Uganda"; and Dr K'yengo's men happening to be
present, added, "Baraka used up all the beads save forty which he
gave to Kamrasi, living upon goats all the way; and when he left,
took back a tusk of ivory."
This little controversy was amusing, but did not suit Kamrasi,
who had his eye on a certain valuable possession of mine. He
made his approach towards it by degrees, beginning with a truly
royal speech thus: "I am the king of all these countries, even
including Uganda and Kidi - though the Kidi people are such
savages they obey no man's orders - and you are great men also,
sitting on chairs before kings; it therefore ill becomes us to
talk of such trifles as beads, especially as I know if you ever
return this way I shall get more from you." "Begging your
majesty's pardon," I said, "the mention of beads only fell in the
way of our talk like stones in a walk; our motive being to get at
the truth of what Baraka did and said here, as his conduct in
returning after receiving strict orders from Rumanika and
ourselves to open the road, is a perfect enigma to us.
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