of contest proving themselves the stronger. But he, heading
the royalist party, soon reduced them to order, though
only for a short while, as from that point they turned
round to open mutiny for more rations; and some of the
rebels tried to kill him, which, he said, they would have
done had he not settled the matter by buying some cows
for them. It was on this account he had been obliged to
open my loads. And now he had told me the case, he
hoped I would forgive him if he had done wrong. Now,
the real facts of the case were these—though I did not
find them out at the tim e B a r a k a had bought some
slaves with my effects, and he had had a fight with some
of my men because they tampered with his temporary
wife—a princess he had picked up in Phtlnze. To obtain
her hand he had given ten necklaces of my beads to her
mother, and had agreed to the condition that he should
keep the girl during the journey; and after it was over,
and he took her home, he would, if his wife pleased him,
give her mother ten necklaces more.
Next day Baraka told me his heart shrank to the dimensions
of a very small berry when he saw whom I had
brought with me yesterday—meaning Bombay, and the
same porters whom he had prevented going on with me
before. I said, “ Pooh, nonsense; have done with such
excuses, and let us get away out of this as fast as we can.
Now, like a good man, just use your influence with the
chief of the village, and try and get from him five or six
men to complete the number we want, and then we will
work round the east of Sorombo up to Usui, for Suwarora
has invited us to him.” This, however, was not so easy;
for Lumerdsi, having heard of my arrival, sent his "YVan-
yapara, or grey-beards, to beg I would visit him. He
had never seen a white man in all his life, neither had
his father, nor any of his forefathers, although he had
often been down to the coast; I must come and see him,
as I had seen his mtoto Buhe. He did not want property ;
it was only the pleasure of my company that he wanted,
to enable him to tell all his friends what a great man had
lived in his house.
This was terrible : I saw at once that all my difficulties
in Sorombo would have to be gone through again if I
went there, and groaned when I thought what a trick the
Pig had played me when I first of all came to this place;
for if I had gone on then, as I wished, I should have
slipped past Lumffi&i without his knowing it.
. I had to get up a storm at the grey-beards, and said I ,
could not stand going out of my road to see any one now,
for I had already lost so much time by Makaka’s trickery
in Sorombo. Bui then, quaking with fright at my obstinacy,
said, “ You must—indeed you must—give in and do
with these savage chiefs as the Arabs when they travel,
for I will not be a party to riding rough-shod over them.”
Still I stuck out, and the grey-beards departed to tell their
chief of it. Next morning he sent them back again to say
he would not be cheated out of his rights as the chief of
the district. Still I would not give in, and the whole day
kept “ jawing” without effect, for I could get no ma.n to
go with me until the chief gave his sanction. I then tried
to send Bombay off with Bui, Nasib, and their guide, by
night; but though Bombay was willing, the other two
hung back on the old plea. In this state of perplexity,
Bui begged I would allow him to go over to Ltimeresi
and see what he could do with a present. Bui really now
was my only stand-by, so I sent him off, and next had the
mortification to find that he had been humbugged by
honeyed words, as Baraka had been with Ma.ka.k^ into
believing that Lumeresi was a good man, who really had
no other desire at heart than the love of seeing me. His
boma, he said, did not lie much out of my line, and he
did not wish a stitch of my cloth. So far from detaining
me, he would give me as many men as I wanted; and, as
an earnest of his good intentions, he sent his copper