receiving orders to keep their prisoners till claimed, when,
should any people come forward, they would be punished,
otherwise their loss in human stock would be enougOh.
The Wanghana had done quite right to seize on the highway,
else they would have starved; such was the old law,
and such is the present one. It was no use our applying
for a change of system. At this stage of the business, the
birds he was watching having appeared, the king, in a
great state of excitement, said, “ Shoot that kite,” and
then “ Shoot that other; ” but the charges were too light;
and the birds flew away, kicking with their claws as if
merely stung a little.
Whilst this was going on, the Kamraviona, taking
advantage of my having opened the door with the gun,
walked in to make his salutations. A blacksmith pro*
duced two very handsome spears, and a fisherman a basket
of fish, from which two fish were taken out and given to
me. The king then sat on his iron chair, and I on a
wooden box which I had contrived to stuff with the royal
grass he gave me, and so made a complete. miniature
imitation of his throne. The contrivance made him
laugh, as much, I fancy, at his own folly in not allowing
me to sit upon my portable iron stool, as at my ingenious
device for carrying out my determination to sit before
him like an Englishman. I wished to be communicative,
and, giving him a purse of money, told him the
use and value of the several coins; but he paid little
regard to them, and soon put them down. The Smalltalk
of Uganda had much more attractions to his mind
than the wonders of the outer world, and he kept it
up with his Kamraviona until rain fell and dispersed the
company.
19 th.—As the queen, to avoid future difficulties, desired
my officers to acquaint her beforehand whenever I wished
to call upon her, I sent Nasib early to say I would call in
the afternoon; but he had to wait till the evening before
he could deliver the message, though she had been drumming
and playing all the day. She then complained
against my men for robbing her gardeners on the highway,
wished to know why I didn’t call upon her oftener,
appointed the following morning for an interview, and
begged I would bring her some liver medicines, as she
suffered from constant twinges in her right side, sealing
her “ letter” with a present of a nest of eggs and one
fowl.W
hilst Nasib was away, I went to the Kamraviona
to treat him as I had the king. He appeared a little
more affable to-day, yet still delighted in nothing but
what was frivolous. My beard, for instance, engrossed
the major part of the conversation; all the Waganda
would come out in future with hairy faces; but when I
told them that, to produce such a growth, they must wash
their faces with milk, and allow a cat to lick it off, they
turned up their noses in utter contempt.
20th.—I became dead tired of living all alone, with
nothing else to occupy my time save making these notes
every day in my office letter-book, as my store of
stationery was left at Karagfib. I had no chance of
seeing any visitors, save the tiresome pages, who asked me
to give or to do something for the king every day; and my
prospect was cheerless, as I had been flatly refused a visit
to Usoga until Grant should come. For want of better
amusement, I made a page of Lugoi, a sharp little lad,
son of the late Belfich, but adopted by Ulbdi, and treated
him as a son, which he declared he wished to be, for he
liked me better than Uledi as a father. He said he disliked
Uganda, where people’s lives are taken like those of
fowls; and wished to live at the coast, the only place he
ever heard of, where all the Wanguana come from—great
swells in Lugoi’s estimation. Now, with Lugoi dressed in
a new white pillow-case, with holes trimmed with black
tape for his head and arms to go through, a dagger tied