This Rush-Drain, All The Natives Assured Me, Rose In The
Hills To The Southward - Not In The Lake, As The Mwerango Did -
And It Was Never Bridged Over Like That River, Because It Was
Always Fordable.
This account seemed to me reasonable; for
though so much broader in its bed than the Mwerango, it had no
central, deep-flowing current.
Chapter XI
Palace, Uganda
Preparations for the Reception at the Court of Mtesa, King of
Uganda - The Ceremonial - African Diplomacy and Dignity - Feats with
the Rifle - Cruelty, and Wastefulness of Life - The Pages - The
Queen- Dowager of Uganda - Her Court Reception - I negotiate for a
Palace - Conversations with the King and Queen - The Queen's grand
Entertainment - Royal Dissipation.
To-day the king sent his pages to announce his intention of
holding a levee in my honour. I prepared for my first
presentation at court, attired in my best, though in it I cut a
poor figure in comparison with the display of the dressy Waganda.
They wore neat bark cloaks resembling the best yellow corduroy
cloth, crimp and well set, as if stiffened with starch, and over
that, as upper-cloaks, a patchwork of small antelope skins, which
I observed were sewn together as well as any English glovers
could have pieced them; whilst their head-dresses, generally,
were abrus turbans, set off with highly-polished boar-tusks,
stick-charms, seeds, beads, or shells; and on their necks, arms,
and ankles they wore other charms of wood, or small horns stuffed
with magic powder, and fastened on by strings generally covered
with snake-skin. N'yamgundu and Maula demanded, as their official
privilege, a first peep; and this being refused, they tried to
persuade me that the articles comprising the present required to
be covered with chintz, for it was considered indecorous to offer
anything to his majesty in a naked state. This little
interruption over, the articles enumerated below[FN#18] were
conveyed to the palace in solemn procession thus: - With
N'yamgundu, Maula, the pages, and myself on the flanks, the
Union-Jack carried by the kirangozi guide led the way, followed
by twelve men as a guard of honour, dressed in red flannel
cloaks, and carrying their arms sloped, with fixed bayonets;
whilst in their rear were the rest of my men, each carrying some
article as a present.
On the march towards the palace, the admiring courtiers, wonder-
struck at such an unusual display, exclaimed, in raptures of
astonishment, some with both hands at their mouths, and others
clasping their heads with their hands, "Irungi! irungi!" which
may be translated "Beautiful! beautiful!" I thought myself
everything was going on as well as could be wished; but before
entering the royal enclosures, I found, to my disagreeable
surprise, that the men with Suwarora's hongo or offering, which
consisted of more than a hundred coils of wire, were ordered to
lead the procession, and take precedence of me. There was
something specially aggravating in this precedence; for it will
be remembered that these very brass wires which they saw, I had
myself intended for Mtesa, that they were taken from me by
Suwarora as far back as Usui, and it would never do, without
remonstrance, to have them boastfully paraded before my eyes in
this fashion. My protests, however, had no effect upon the
escorting Wakungu. Resolving to make them catch it, I walked
along as if ruminating in anger up the broad high road into a
cleared square, which divides Mtesa's domain on the south from
his Kamraviona's, or commander-in-chief, on the north, and then
turned into the court. The palace or entrance quite surprised me
by its extraordinary dimensions, and the neatness with which it
was kept. The whole brow and sides of the hill on which we stood
were covered with gigantic grass huts, thatched as neatly as so
many heads dressed by a London barber, and fenced all round with
the tall yellow reeds of the common Uganda tiger-grass; whilst
within the enclosure, the lines of huts were joined together, or
partitioned off into courts, with walls of the same grass. It is
here most of Mtesa's three or four hundred women are kept, the
rest being quartered chiefly with his mother, known by the title
of N'yamasore, or queen-dowager. They stood in little groups at
the doors, looking at us, and evidently passing their own
remarks, and enjoying their own jokes, on the triumphal
procession. At each gate as we passed, officers on duty opened
and shut it for us, jingling the big bells which are hung upon
them, as they sometimes are at shop-doors, to prevent silent,
stealthy entrance.
The first court passed, I was even more surprised to find the
unusual ceremonies that awaited me. There courtiers of high
dignity stepped forward to greet me, dressed in the most
scrupulously neat fashions. Men, women, bulls, dogs, and goats,
were led about by strings; cocks and hens were carried in men's
arms; and little pages, with rope-turbans, rushed about,
conveying messages, as if their lives depended on their
swiftness, every one holding his skin-cloak tightly round him
lest his naked legs might by accident be shown.
This, then, was the ante-reception court; and I might have taken
possession of the hut, in which musicians were playing and
singing on large nine-stringed harps, like the Nubian tambira,
accompanied by harmonicons. By the chief officers in waiting,
however, who thought fit to treat us like Arab merchants, I was
requested to sit on the ground outside in the sun with my
servants. Now, I had made up my mind never to sit upon the
ground as the natives and Arabs are obliged to do, nor to make my
obeisance in any other manner than is customary in England,
though the Arabs had told me that from fear they had always
complied with the manners of the court. I felt that if I did not
stand up for my social position at once, I should be treated with
contempt during the remainder of my visit, and thus lose the
vantage-ground I had assumed of appearing rather as a prince than
a trader, for the purpose of better gaining the confidence of the
king.
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