On Arrival At Ngambezi, I Was Immensely Struck With The Neatness
And Good Arrangement Of The Place, As Well As Its Excessive
Beauty And Richness.
No part of Bengal or Zanzibar could excel
it in either respect; and my men, with one voice, exclaimed, "Ah,
what people these Waganda are!" and passed other remarks, which
may be abridged as follows:
- "They build their huts and keep
their gardens just as well as we do at Unguja, with screens and
enclosures for privacy, a clearance in front of their
establishments, and a baraza or reception-hut facing the
buildings. Then, too, what a beautiful prospect it has! - rich
marshy plains studded with mounds, on each of which grow the
umbrella cactus, or some other evergreen tree; and beyond, again,
another hill-spur such as the one we have crossed over." One of
king Mtesa's uncles, who had not been burnt to death by the order
of the late king Sunna on his ascension to the throne, was the
proprietor of this place, but unfortunately he was from home.
However, his substitute gave me his baraza to live in, and
brought many presents of goats, fowls, sweet potatoes, yams,
plantains, sugarcane, and Indian corn, and apologised in the end
for deficiency in hospitality. I, of course, gave him beads in
return.
Continuing over the same kind of ground in the next succeeding
spurs of the streaky red-clay sandstone hills, we put up at the
residence of Isamgevi, a Mkungu or district officer of
Rumanika's. His residence was as well kept as Mtesa's uncle's;
but instead of a baraza fronting his house, he had a small
enclosure, with three small huts in it, kept apart for devotional
purposes, or to propitiate the evil spirits - in short, according
to the notions of the place, a church. This officer gave me a
cow and some plantains, and I in return gave him a wire and some
beads. Many mendicant women, called by some Wichwezi, by others
Mabandwa, all wearing the most fantastic dresses of mbugu,
covered with beads, shells, and sticks, danced before us, singing
a comic song, the chorus of which was a long shrill rolling Coo-
roo-coo-roo, coo-roo-coo-roo, delivered as they came to a
standstill. Their true functions were just as obscure as the
religion of the negroes generally; some called them devil-
drivers, other evil-eye averters; but, whatever it was for, they
imposed a tax on the people, whose minds being governed by a
necessity for making some self-sacrifice to propitiate something,
they could not tell what, for their welfare in the world, they
always gave them a trifle in the same way as the East Indians do
their fakirs.
After crossing another low swampy flat, we reached a much larger
group, or rather ramification, of hill-spurs pointing to the
N'yanza, called Kisuere, and commanded by M'yombo, Rumanika's
frontier officer. Immediately behind this, to the northward,
commenced the kingdom of Unyoro; and here it was, they said,
Baraka would branch off my line on his way to Kamrasi. Maula's
home was one march distant from this, so the scoundrel now left
me to enjoy himself there, giving as his pretext for doing so,
that Mtesa required him, as soon as I arrived here, to send on a
messenger that order might be taken for my proper protection on
the line of march; for the Waganda were a turbulent set of
people, who could only be kept in order by the executioner; and
doubtless many, as was customary on such occasions, would be
beheaded, as soon as Mtesa heard of my coming, to put the rest in
a fright. I knew this was all humbug, of course, and I told him
so; but it was of no use, and I was compelled to halt.
On the 23d another officer, named Maribu, came to me and said,
Mtesa, having heard that Grant was left sick behind at Karague,
had given him orders to go there and fetch him, whether sick or
well, for Mtesa was most anxious to see white men. Hearing this
I at once wrote to Grant, begging him to come on if he could do
so, and to bring with him all the best of my property, or as much
as he could of it, as I now saw there was more cunning humbug
than honesty in what Rumanika had told me about the impossibility
of our going north from Uganda, as well as in his saying sick men
could not go into Uganda, and donkeys without trousers would not
be admitted there, because they were considered indecent. If he
was not well enough to move, I advised him to wait there until I
reached Mtesa's, when I would either go up the lake and Kitangule
to fetch him away, or would make the king send boats for him,
which I more expressly wished, as it would tend to give us a much
better knowledge of the lake.
Maula now came again, after receiving repeated and angry
messages, and I forced him to make a move. He led me straight up
to his home, a very nice place, in which he gave me a very large,
clean, and comfortable hut - had no end of plantains brought for
me and my men - and said, "Now you have really entered the kingdom
of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food. At every
place that you stop for the day, the officer in charge will bring
you plantains, otherwise your men can help themselves in the
gardens, for such are the laws of the land when a king's guest
travels in it. Any one found selling anything to either yourself
or your men would be punished." Accordingly, I stopped the daily
issue of beads; but no sooner had I done so, than all my men
declared they could not eat plantains. It was all very well,
they said, for the Waganda to do so, because they were used to
it, but it did not satisfy their hunger.
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