but finding he had gone to the king as usual, called at
Masimbi’s, and he being absent also, I took advantage of
my proximity to the queen’s palace to call on her majesty.
For hours I was kept waiting s firstly, because she was at
breakfast; secondly, because she was “ putting on medicine
; ’’ and, thirdly, because the sun was too powerful for
her complexion; when I became tired of her nonsense,
and said, “ If she does not wish to see me, she had better
say so at once, else I shall walk away; for the last time I
came I saw her but for a minute, when she rudely turned
her back upon me, and left me sitting by myself.” I was
told not to be in a hurry—she would see me in the evening.
This promise might probably be fulfilled six blessed
hours from the time when it was made • but I thought to
myself, every place in Uganda is alike when there is no
company at home, and so I resolved to sit the time out,
like Patience on a monument, hoping something funny
might turn up after all.
At last her majesty stumps out, squats behind my red
blanket, which is converted into a permanent screen, and
says hastily, or rather testily, “ Can’t Bana perceive the
angry state of the weather ?—clouds flying about, and the
wind blowing half a gale ? Whenever that is the case, I
cannot venture out.” Taking her lie without an answer,
I said, I had now been fifty days or so doing nothing in
Uganda—not one single visitor of my own rank ever
came near me, and I could not associate with people far
below her condition and mine—in fact, all I had to amuse
me at home now was watching a hen lay her eggs upon
my spare bed. Her majesty became genial, as she had
been before, and promised to provide me with suitable
society. I then told her I had desired my officers several
times to ask the king how marriages were conducted in
this country, as they appeared so different from ours, but
they always said they dared not put such a question to
him, and now I hoped she would explain it to me. To
tell her I could not get anything from the king, I knew
would be the surest way of eliciting what I wanted from
her, because of the jealousy between the two courts; and
in this instance it was fully proved, for she brightened up
at once, and, when I got her to understand something of
what I meant by a marriage ceremony, in high good-
humour entered on a long explanation, to the following
effect:—
There are no such things as marriages in Uganda; there
are no ceremonies attached to it. If any Mkungti possessed
of a pretty daughter committed an offence, he might give
her to the king as a peace-offering ; if any neighbouring
king had a pretty daughter, and the king of Uganda
wanted her, she might be demanded as a fitting tribute.
The Wakungu in Uganda are supplied with women by the
king, according to their merits, from seizures in battle
abroad, or seizures from refractory officers at home. The
women are not regarded as property according to the
Wanyamtidzi practice, though many exchange their daughters
; and some women, for misdemeanours, are sold into
slavery; whilst others are flogged, or are degraded to do
all the menial services of the house.
The Wakungu then changed the subject by asking, if I
married a black woman, would there be any offspring, and
what would be their colour ? The company now became
jovial, when the queen improved it by making a significant
gesture, and with roars of laughter asking me if I
would like to be her son-in-law, for she had some beautiful
daughters, either of the Wahuma or Waganda breed.
Rather staggered at first by this awful proposal, I consulted
Bombay what I should do with one if I got her.
He, looking more to number one than my convenience,
said, “ By all means accept the offer, for if you don’t like
her, we should, and it would be a good means of getting
her out of this land of death, for all black people love
Zanzibar.” The rest need not be to ld ; as a matter of