being refused, they tried to persuade me that the articles
comprising the present required to be covered with chintz,
Mganda, o r ITatiya o f Uganda.
for it was considered indecorous to offer anything to his
majesty in a naked state. This little interruption over,
the articles enumerated below * were conveyed to the
palace in solemn, procession t h u sW i t h N’yamgundu,
Maiila, the pages, and myself on the flanks, the Union-
Jack earned 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,
* 1 block-tin box, 4 rich silk cloths, 1 rifle (Whitworth’s), 1 gold chronometer,
1 revolver pistol, 3 rifled carbines, 3 sword-bayonets, 1 box annnuni-
on, box bullets, 1 box gun-caps, 1 telescope, 1 iron chair, 10 bundles best
beads, 1 set ol table-knives, spoons, and forks.
in raptures of astonishment, some with both hands at
their mouths, and others clasping their heads with their
hands, <cIrungi! 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 iu 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 Siiwarora as far
back as Usiii, 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 Wakungii. 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 wTas 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,