- "They Build Their Huts And Keep
Their Gardens Just As Well As We Do At Unguja, With Screens And
Enclosures For Privacy, A Clearance In Front Of Their
Establishments, And A Baraza Or Reception-Hut Facing The
Buildings.
Then, too, what a beautiful prospect it has!
- Rich
marshy plains studded with mounds, on each of which grow the
umbrella cactus, or some other evergreen tree; and beyond, again,
another hill-spur such as the one we have crossed over." One of
king Mtesa's uncles, who had not been burnt to death by the order
of the late king Sunna on his ascension to the throne, was the
proprietor of this place, but unfortunately he was from home.
However, his substitute gave me his baraza to live in, and
brought many presents of goats, fowls, sweet potatoes, yams,
plantains, sugarcane, and Indian corn, and apologised in the end
for deficiency in hospitality. I, of course, gave him beads in
return.
Continuing over the same kind of ground in the next succeeding
spurs of the streaky red-clay sandstone hills, we put up at the
residence of Isamgevi, a Mkungu or district officer of
Rumanika's. His residence was as well kept as Mtesa's uncle's;
but instead of a baraza fronting his house, he had a small
enclosure, with three small huts in it, kept apart for devotional
purposes, or to propitiate the evil spirits - in short, according
to the notions of the place, a church. This officer gave me a
cow and some plantains, and I in return gave him a wire and some
beads. Many mendicant women, called by some Wichwezi, by others
Mabandwa, all wearing the most fantastic dresses of mbugu,
covered with beads, shells, and sticks, danced before us, singing
a comic song, the chorus of which was a long shrill rolling Coo-
roo-coo-roo, coo-roo-coo-roo, delivered as they came to a
standstill. Their true functions were just as obscure as the
religion of the negroes generally; some called them devil-
drivers, other evil-eye averters; but, whatever it was for, they
imposed a tax on the people, whose minds being governed by a
necessity for making some self-sacrifice to propitiate something,
they could not tell what, for their welfare in the world, they
always gave them a trifle in the same way as the East Indians do
their fakirs.
After crossing another low swampy flat, we reached a much larger
group, or rather ramification, of hill-spurs pointing to the
N'yanza, called Kisuere, and commanded by M'yombo, Rumanika's
frontier officer. Immediately behind this, to the northward,
commenced the kingdom of Unyoro; and here it was, they said,
Baraka would branch off my line on his way to Kamrasi. Maula's
home was one march distant from this, so the scoundrel now left
me to enjoy himself there, giving as his pretext for doing so,
that Mtesa required him, as soon as I arrived here, to send on a
messenger that order might be taken for my proper protection on
the line of march; for the Waganda were a turbulent set of
people, who could only be kept in order by the executioner; and
doubtless many, as was customary on such occasions, would be
beheaded, as soon as Mtesa heard of my coming, to put the rest in
a fright.
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