Part 19 (1/2)
After a while, and when all business was over, the king begged me to follow him into the palace. He asked again for stimulants--a matter ever uppermost in his mind--and would not be convinced that such things can do him no possible good, but would in the end be deleterious. Grant's letter was then read to him before his women, and I asked for the dismissal of all the Wanyambo, for they had not only destroyed my peace and home, but were always getting me into disrepute by plundering the Waganda in the highways. No answer was given to this; and on walking home, I found one of the king's women at my hut, imploring protection against the Wanyambo, who had robbed and bruised her so often, she could not stand such abuse any longer.
4th.--I sent Maula, early in the morning, with the plundered woman, and desired him to request that the Wanyambo might be dismissed. He returned, saying he delivered my message, but no reply was given. I then searched for the king, and found him at his brothers' suite of huts playing the flute before them. On taking my seat, he proudly pointed to two vultures which he had shot with bullet, saying to his brothers, ”There, do you see these birds? Bana shoots with shot, but I kill with bullets.” To try him, I then asked for leave to go to Usoga, as Grant was so far off; but he said, ”No, wait until he comes, and you shall both go together then; you fancy he is far off, but I know better. One of my men saw him coming along carried on a stretcher.” I said, ”No; that must be a mistake, for he told me by letter he would come by water.”
Heavy rain now set in, and we got under cover; but the brothers never moved, some even sitting in the streaming gutter, and n'yanzigging whenever noticed. The eldest brother offered me his cup of pombe, thinking I would not drink it; but when he saw its contents vanis.h.i.+ng fast, he cried ”lekerow!” (hold fast!) and as I pretended not to understand him, continuing to drink, he rudely s.n.a.t.c.hed the cup from my lips. Alternate concerts with the brothers, and conversation about hunting, in consequence of a b.u.mp caused by a fall with steeple-chasing, which as discovered on my forehead, ended this day's entertainment.
5th.--As all the w.a.n.guana went foraging, I was compelled to stop at home. The king, however, sent an officer for Grant, because I would not believe in his statement yesterday that he was coming by land; and I also sent a lot of men with a litter to help him on, and bring me an answer.
6th.--I went to the palace at the king's command. He kept us waiting an hour, and then pa.s.sing out by a side gate, beckoned us to follow. He was dressed in European clothes, with his guns and tin box of clothes leading the way. His first question was, ”Well, Bana, where are your guns? for I have called you to go shooting.” ”The pages never said anything about shooting, and therefore the guns were left behind.”
Totally unconcerned, the king walked on to his brothers, headed by a band and attendants, who were much lauded for being ready at a moment's notice. A grand flute concert was then played, one of the younger brothers keeping time with a long hand-drum; then the band played; and dancing and duets and singing followed. After the usual presentations, fines, and n'yanziggings, I asked for leave to go and meet Grant by water, but was hastily told that two boats had been sent for him when we returned from the N'yanza, and that two runners, just returned from Karague, said he was on the way not far off. The child-king then changed his dress for another suit of clothes for his brothers to admire, and I retired, much annoyed, as he would neither give pombe for myself, nor plantains for my men: and I was further annoyed on my arrival at home, to find the w.a.n.guana mobbing my hut and clamouring for food, and calling for an order to plunder if I did not give them beads, which, as the stock had run short, I could only do by their returning to Karague for the beads stored there; and, even if they were obtained, it was questionable if the king would revoke his order prohibiting the sale of provisions to us.
7th.--To-day I called at the queen's, but had to wait five hours in company with some attendants, to whom she sent pombe occasionally; but after waiting for her nearly all day, they were dismissed, because excess of business prevented her seeing them, though I was desired to remain. I asked these attendants to sell me food for beads, but they declared they could not without obtaining permission. In the evening the queen stumped out of her chambers and walked to the other end of her palace, where the head or queen of the Wichwezi women lived, to whom everybody paid the profoundest respect. On the way I joined her, she saying, in a state of high anger, ”You won't call on me, now I have given you such a charming damsel: you have quite forgotten us in your love of home.” Of course Meri's misdemeanour had to be explained, when she said, ”As that is the case, I will give you another; but you must take Meri out of the country, else she will bring trouble on us; for, you know, I never gave girls who lived in the palace to any one in my life before, because they would tell domestic affairs not proper for common people to know.” I then said my reason for not seeing her before was, that the four times I had sent messengers to make an appointment for the following day, they had been repulsed from her doors. This she would not believe, but called me a story-teller in very coa.r.s.e language, until the men who had been sent were pointed out to her, and they corroborated me.
The Wichwezi queen met her majesty with her head held very high, and instead of permitting me to sit on my box of gra.s.s, threw out a bundle of gra.s.s for that purpose. All conversation was kept between the two queens; but her Wichwezi majesty had a platter of clay-stone brought, which she ate with great relish, making a noise of satisfaction like a happy guinea-pig. She threw me a bit, which to the surprise of everybody, I caught and threw it into my mouth, thinking it was some confection; but the harsh taste soon made me spit it out again, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the company. On returning home I found the king had requested me to call on him as soon as possible with the medicine-chest.
8th.--Without a morsel to eat for dinner last night, or anything this morning, we proceeded early to the palace, in great expectation that the medicines in request would bring us something; but after waiting all day till 4 p.m., as the king did not appear, leaving Bombay behind, I walked away to shoot a guinea-fowl within earshot of the palace. The scheme was successful, for the report of the gun which killed the bird reached the king's ear, and induced him to say that if Bana was present he would be glad to see him. This gave Bombay an opportunity of telling all the facts of the case; which were no sooner heard than the king gave his starving guests a number of plantains, and vanished at once, taking my page Lugoi with him, to instruct him in Kisuahili (Zanzibar language).
9th.--As the fruit of last night's scheme, the king sent us four goats and two cows. In great good-humour I now called on him, and found him walking about the palace environs with a carbine, looking eagerly for sport, whilst his pages dragged about five half-dead vultures tied in a bundle by their legs to a string. ”These birds,” said he, tossing his head proudly, ”were all shot flying, with iron slugs, as the boys will tell you. I like the carbine very well, but you must give me a double smooth gun.” This I promised to give when Grant arrived, for his good-nature in sending so many officers to fetch him.
We next tried for guinea-fowl, as I tell him they are the game the English delight in; but the day was far spent, and none could be found.
A boy then in attendance was pointed out, as having seen Grant in Uddu ten days ago. If the statement were true, he must have crossed the Katonga. But though told with great apparent circ.u.mspection, I did not credit it, because my men sent on the 15th ultimo for a letter to ascertain his whereabouts had not returned, and they certainly would have done so had he been so near. To make sure, the king then proposed sending the boy again with some of my men; but this I objected to as useless, considering the boy had spoken falsely. Hearing this, the king looked at the boy and then at the women in turn, to ascertain what they thought of my opinion, whereupon the boy cried. Late in the evening the sly little girl Kahala changed her cloth wrapper for a mbugu, and slipped quietly away. I did not suspect her intention, because of late she had appeared much more than ordinary happy, behaving to me in every respect like a dutiful child to a parent. A search was made, and guns fired, in the hopes of frightening her back again, but without effect.
10th.--I had promised that this morning I would teach the king the art of guinea-fowl shooting, and when I reached the palace at 6 a.m., I found him already on the ground. He listened to the tale of the missing girl, and sent orders for her apprehension at once; then proceeding with the gun, fired eight shots successively at guinea-birds sitting on trees, but missed them all. After this, as the birds were scared away, and both iron shot and bullets were expended, he took us to his dressing-hut, went inside himself, attended by full-grown naked women, and ordered a breakfast of pork, beef, fish, and plantains to be served me outside on the left of the entrance; whilst a large batch of his women sat on the right side, silently coquetting, and amusing themselves by mimicking the white man eating. Poor little Lugoi joined in the repast, and said he longed to return to my hut, for he was half starved here, and no one took any notice of him; but he was destined to be a royal page, for the king would not part with him. A cold fit then seized me, and as I asked for leave to go, the king gave orders for one of his wives to be flogged. The reason for this act of brutality I did not discover; but the moment the order was issued, the victim begged the pages to do it quickly, that the king's wrath might be appeased; and in an instant I saw a dozen boys tear their cord-turbans from their heads pull her roughly into the middle of the court, and belabour her with sticks, whilst she lay floundering about, screeching to me for protection. All I did was to turn my head away and walk rapidly out of sight, thinking it better not to interfere again with the discipline of the palace; indeed, I thought it not improbable that the king did these things sometimes merely that his guests might see his savage power. On reaching home I found Kahala standing like a culprit before my door.
She would not admit, what I suspected, that Meri had induced her to run away; but said she was very happy in my house until yester-evening, when Rozaro's sister told her she was very stupid living with the Mzungu all alone, and told her to run away; which she did, taking the direction of N'yamasore's, until some officers finding her, and noticing beads on her neck, and her hair cut, according to the common court fas.h.i.+on, in slopes from a point in the forehead to the breadth of her ears, suspected her to be one of the king's women, and kept her in confinement all night, till Mtesa's men came this morning and brought her back again. As a punishment, I ordered her to live with Bombay; but my house was so dull again from want of some one to eat dinner with me, that I remitted the punishment, to her great delight.
11th.--To-day I received letters from Grant, dated 22d., 25th, 28th April and 2d May. They were brought by my three men, with Karague pease, flour, and ammunition. He was at Maula's house, which proved the king's boy to be correct; for the convoy, afraid of encountering the voyage on the lake, had deceived my companion and brought him on by land, like true negroes.
12th.--I sent the three men who had returned from Grant to lay a complaint against the convoy, who had tricked him out of a pleasant voyage, and myself out of the long-wished-for survey of the lake. They carried at the same time a present of a canister of shot from me to the king. Delighted with this unexpected prize, he immediately shot fifteen birds flying, and ordered the men to acquaint me with his prowess.
13th.--To-day the king sent me four cows and a load of b.u.t.ter as a return-present for the shot, and allowed one of his officers, at my solicitation, to go with ten of my men to help Grant on. He also sent a message that he had just shot thirteen birds flying.
14th.--Mabuki and Bilal returned with Budja and his ten children from Unyoro, attended by a deputation of four men sent by Kamrasi, who were headed by Kidgwiga. Mtesa, it now transpired, had followed my advice of making friends.h.i.+p with Kamrasi by sending two bra.s.s wires as a hongo instead of an army, and Kamrasi in return, sent him two elephant-tusks.
Kidgwiga said Petherick's party was not in Unyoro--they had never reached there, but were lying at anchor off Gani. Two white men only had been seen--one, they said, a hairy man, the other smooth-faced; they were as anxiously inquiring after us as we were after them: they sat on chairs, dressed like myself, and had guns and everything precisely like those in my hut. On one occasion they sent up a necklace of beads to Kamrasi, and he, in return, gave them a number of women and tusks. If I wished to go that way, Kamrasi would forward me on to their position in boats; for the land route, leading through Kidi, was a jungle of ten days, tenanted by a savage set of people, who hunt everybody, and seize everything they see.
This tract is sometimes, however, traversed by the Wanyoro and Gani people, who are traders in cows and tippet monkey-skins, stealthily travelling at night; but they seldom attempt it from fear of being murdered. Baraka and Uledi, sent from Karague on the 30th January, had been at Kamrasi's palace upwards of a month, applying for the road to Gani, and as they could not get that, wished to come with Mabruki to me; but this Kamrasi also refused, on the plea that, as they had come from Karague, so they must return there. Kamrasi had heard of my shooting with Mtesa, as also of the attempt made by Mabruki and Uledi to reach Gani via Usoga. He had received my present of beads from Baraka, and, in addition, took Uledi's sword, saying, ”If you do not wish to part with it, you must remain a prisoner in my country all your life, for you have not paid your footing.” Mabruki then told me he was kept waiting at a village, one hour's walk from Kamrasi's palace, five days before they were allowed to approach his majesty; but when they were seen, and the presents exchanged, they were ordered to pack off the following morning, as Kamrasi said the Waganda were a set of plundering blackguards.
This information, to say the least of it, was very embarra.s.sing--a mixture of good and bad. Petherick, I now felt certain, was on the look-out for us; but his men had reached Kamrasi's, and returned again before Baraka's arrival. Baraka was not allowed to go on to him and acquaint him of our proximity, and the Waganda were so much disliked in Unyoro, that there seemed no hopes of our ever being able to communicate by letter. To add to my embarra.s.sments, Grant had not been able to survey the lake from Kitangule, nor had Usoga and the eastern side of the lake been seen.
15th.--I was still laid up with the cold fit of the 10th, which turned into a low kind of fever. I sent Bombay to the king to tell him the news, and ask him what he thought of doing next. He replied that he would push for Gani direct; and sent back a pot of pombe for the sick man.
16th.--The king to-day inquired after my health, and, strange to say, did not accompany his message with a begging request.
17th.--My respite, however, was not long. At the earliest possible hour in the morning the king sent begging for things one hundred times refused, supposing, apparently, that I had some little reserve store which I wished to conceal from him.
18th and 19th.--I sent Bombay to the palace to beg for pombe, as it was the only thing I had an appet.i.te for, but the king would see no person but myself. He had broken his rifle was.h.i.+ng-rod, and this must be mended, the pages who brought it saying that no one dared take it back to him until it was repaired. A guinea-fowl was sent after dark for me to see, as a proof that the king was a sportsman complete.
20th.--The king going out shooting borrowed my powder-horn. The w.a.n.guana mobbed the hut and bullied me for food, merely because they did not like the trouble of helping themselves from the king's garden, though they knew I had purchased their privilege to do so at the price of a gold chronometer and the best guns England could produce.
21st.--I now, for the first time, saw the way in which the king collected his army together. The highroads were all thronged with Waganda warriors, painted in divers colours, with plantain-leaf bands round their heads, scanty goat-skin fastened to their loins, and spears and s.h.i.+eld in their hands, singing the tambure or march, ending with a repet.i.tion of the word Mkavia, or Monarch. They surpa.s.sed in number, according to Bombay, the troops and ragam.u.f.fins enlisted by Sultain Majid when Sayyid Sweni threatened to attack Zanzibar; in fact, he never saw such a large army collected anywhere.
Bombay, on going to the palace, hoping to obtain plantains for the men, found the king holding a levee, for the purpose of despatching this said army somewhere, but where no one would p.r.o.nounce. The king, then, observing my men who had gone to Unyoro together with Kamrasi's, questioned them on their mission; and when told that no white men were there, he waxed wrathful, and said it was a falsehood, for his men had seen them, and could not be mistaken. Kamrasi, he said, must have hidden them somewhere, fearful of the number of guns which now surrounded him; and, for the same reason, he told lies, yes, lies--but no man living shall dare tell himself lies; and now, as he could not obtain his object by fair means, he would use arms and force it out. Then, turning to Bombay, he said, ”What does your master think of this business?” upon which Bombay replied, according to his instructions, ”Bana wishes nothing done until Grant arrives, when all will go together.” On this the king turned his back and walked away.