whilst Mektiib, laughing over the matter as if it were a
good joke, said, “ I packed up my things to go, it is true ■
but I reflected if I got back to the coast Said Majid would
only make a slave of me again.” M’yinzuggi, the head of
Eumanika’s party, gave me to-day a tippet monkey-skin
in return for the cow I had given him on the 14th.
These men, taking their natures from their king E
mamka, are by far the most gentle, polite, and attentive
of any black men we have travelled amongst.
17th. Tired and out of patience with our prison a
river of crocodiles on one side, and swamps in every
other direction, while we could not go out shooting without
a specific order from the king—I sent Kidgwiga and
Kajunju to inform Kamrasi that we could bear this life
no longer. As he did not wish to see white men, our residing
here could be of no earthly use. I hoped he would
accept our present from Bombay, and give us leave to
depart for Gani. The Wakungu, who thought, as well as
ourselves, that we were in nothing better than a prison,
hurried off with the message, and soon returned with a
message from their king that he was busily engaged decorating
his palace to give us a triumphant reception;
for he was anxious to pay us more respect than anybody
who had ever visited him before. We should have seen
him yesterday, only that it rained; and, as a precaution
against our meeting being broken up, a shed was being
built. He could not hear of our leaving the country
without seeing him.
18th.—At last we were summoned to attend the king’s
levee; but the suspicious creature wished his officers to
inspect the things we had brought for him before we went
there. Here was another hitch. I could not submit to
such disrespectful suspicions, but if he wished Bombay to
convey my present to him, I saw no harm in the proposition.
The king waived the point, and we all started,
carrying as a present the things enumerated in the note.*
The Union Jack led the way. At the ferry three shots
were fired, when, stepping into two large canoes, we all
went across the Kafü together, and found, to our surprise,
a small hut built for the reception, low down on the opposite
bank, where no strange eyes could see us.
Within this, sitting on a low wooden stool placed upon
a double matting of skins — cows’ below and leopards’
above—on an elevated platform of grass, was the great
king Kamrasi, looking, enshrouded in his mbügü dress,
for all the world like a pope in state—calm and actionless.
One bracelet of fine-twisted brass wire adorned his left
wrist, and his hair, half an inch long, was worked up into
small peppercorn-like knobs by rubbing the hand circularly
over the crown of the head. His eyes were long,
face narrow, and nose prominent, after the true fashion of
his breed; and though a finely-made man, considerably
above six feet high, he was not so large as Rtrmanika. A
cow-skin, stretched out and fastened to the roof, acted as
a canopy to prevent dust falling, and a curtain of mbügü
concealed the lower parts of the hut, in front of which, on
both sides of the king, sat about a dozen head men.
This was all. We entered and took seats on our own
iron stools, whilst Bombay placed all the presents upon
the ground before the throne. As no greetings were exchanged,
and all at first remained as silent as death, I
commenced, after asking about his health, by saying I had
journeyed six long years (by the African computation of
five months in the year) for the pleasure of this meeting,
* 1 double rifle, 1 block-tin box, 1 red blanket, 1 brown do., 10 copper
wire, 4 socks full of different-coloured minute beads, 2 socks full of blue
and white pigeon eggs, 1 Rodgers’s pen-knife, 2 books, 1 elastic circle, 1 red
handkerchief, 1 bag gun-caps, 1 pair scissors, 1 pomatum-pot, 1 quart bottle,
1 powder-flask, 7 lb. powder, 1 dressing-case, 1 blacking-box, 1 brass lock
and key, 4 brass handles, 8 brass sockets, 7 chintz, 7 bindera, 1 red bag,
1 pair glass spectacles, 1 lucifer-box.