On The Other Hand, As He Could Not Refute
This, Makinga Swore The Mace Was All A Pretence, And Set A-
Fighting With The Wasui And All The Men In Turn.
To put a stop to this, I ordered a halt, and called on the
district officer to assist us, on which he said he would escort
us on to Suwarora's if we would stop till next morning.
This was
agreed to; but in the night we were robbed of three goats, which
he said he could not allow to be passed over, lest Suwarora might
hear of it, and he would get into a scrape. He pressed us
strongly to stop another day whilst he sought for them, but I
told him I would not, as his magic powder was weak, else he would
have found the scabbard we lost long before this.
At last we got under way, and, after winding through a long
forest, we emerged on the first of the populous parts of Usui, a
most convulsed-looking country, of well-rounded hills composed of
sandstone. In all the parts not under cultivation they were
covered with brushwood. Here the little grass-hut villages were
not fenced by a boma, but were hidden in large fields of
plantains. Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma, who could
not sell their milk to us because we ate fowls and a bean called
maharague.
Happily no one tried to pillage us here, so on we went to
Vikora's, another officer, living at N'yakasenye, under a
sandstone hill, faced with a dyke of white quartz, over which
leaped a small stream of water - a seventy-feet drop - which, it is
said, Suwarora sometimes paid homage to when the land was
oppressed by drought. Vikora's father it was whom Sirboko of
Mininga shot. Usually he was very severe with merchants in
consequence of that act; but he did not molest us, as the
messenger who went on to Suwarora returned here just as we
arrived, to say we must come on at once, as Suwarora was anxious
to see us, and had ordered his Wakungu not to molest us. Thieves
that night entered our ringfence of thorns, and stole a cloth
from off one of my men while he was sleeping.
We set down Suwarora, after this very polite message, "a regular
trump," and walked up the hill of N'yakasenye with considerable
mirth, singing his praises; but we no sooner planted ourselves on
the summit than we sang a very different tune. We were ordered
to stop by a huge body of men, and to pay toll.
Suwarora, on second thoughts, had changed his mind, or else he
had been overruled by two of his officers - Kariwami, who lived
here, and Virembo, who lived two stages back, but were then with
their chief. There was no help for it, so I ordered the camp to
be formed, and sent Nasib and the mace-bearers at once off to the
palace to express to his highness how insulted I felt as his
guest, being stopped in this manner, even when I had his
Kaquenzingiriri with me as his authority that I was invited there
as a guest. I was not a merchant who carried merchandise, but a
prince like himself, come on a friendly mission to see him and
Rumanika. I was waiting at night for the return of the
messengers, and sitting out with my sextant observing the stars,
to fix my position, when some daring thieves, in the dark bushes
close by, accosted two of the women of the camp, pretending a
desire to know what I was doing. They were no sooner told by the
unsuspecting women, than they whipped off their cloths and ran
away with them, allowing their victims to pass me in a state of
absolute nudity. I could stand this thieving no longer. My
goats and other things had been taken away without causing me
much distress of mind, but now, after this shocking event, I
ordered my men to shoot at any thieves that came near them.
This night one was shot, without any mistake about it; for the
next morning we tracked him by his blood, and afterwards heard he
had died of his wound. The Wasui elders, contrary to my
expectation, then came and congratulated us on our success. They
thought us most wonderful men, and possessed of supernatural
powers; for the thief in question was a magician, who until now
was thought to be invulnerable. Indeed, they said Arabs with
enormous caravans had often been plundered by these people; but
though they had so many more guns than ourselves, they never
succeeded in killing one.
Nasib then returned to inform us that the king had heard our
complaint, and was sorry for it, but said he could not interfere
with the rights of his officers. He did not wish himself to take
anything from us, and hoped we would come on to him as soon as we
had satisfied his officers with the trifle they wanted. Virembo
then sent us some pombe by his officers, and begged us to have
patience, for he was then fleecing Masudi at the encamping-ground
near the palace. This place was alive with thieves. During the
day they lured my men into their huts by inviting them to dinner;
but when they got them they stripped them stark-naked and let
them go again; whilst at night they stone our camp. After this,
one more was shot dead and two others wounded.
I knew that Suwarora's message was all humbug, and that his
officers merely kept about one per cent. of what they took from
travellers, paying the balance into the royal coffers. Thinking
I was now well in for a good fleecing myself, I sent Bombay off
to Masudi's camp, to tell Insangez, who was travelling with him
on a mission of his master's, old Musa's son, that I would reward
him handsomely if he would, on arrival at Karague, get Rumanika
to send us his mace here in the same way as Suwarora had done to
help us out of Bogue, as he knew Musa at one time said he would
go with us to Karague in person.
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