It Was The First And Last
Time I Had Ever Occasion To Lose My Dignity By Striking A Blow
With
My own hands; but I could not help it on this occasion
without losing command and respect; for although I
Often had
occasion to award 100 and even 150 lashes to my men for stealing,
I could not, for the sake of due subordination, allow any
inferior officer to strike Bombay, and therefore had to do the
work myself.
Skirting the hills on the left, with a large low plain to the
right we soon came on one of those numerous rush-drains that
appear to me to be the last waters left of the old bed of the
N'yanza. This one in particular was rather large, being 150
yards wide. It was sunk where I crossed it, like a canal, 14
feet below the plain; and what with mire and water combined, so
deep, I was obliged to take off my trousers whilst fording it.
Once across, we sought for and put up in a village beneath a
small hill, from the top of which I saw the Victoria N'yanza for
the first time on this march. N'yamgundu delighted me much:
treating me as king, he always fell down on his knees to address
me, and made all his "children" look after my comfort in camp.
We marched on again over the same kind of ground, alternately
crossing rush-drains of minor importance, though provokingly
frequent, and rich gardens, from which, as we passed, all the
inhabitants bolted at the sound of our drums, knowing well that
they would be seized and punished if found gazing at the king's
visitors. Even on our arrival at Ukara not one soul was visible.
The huts of the villagers were shown to myself and my men without
any ceremony. The Wanyambo escort stole what they liked out of
them, and I got into no end of troubles trying to stop the
practice; for they said the Waganda served them the same way when
they went to Karague, and they had a right to retaliate now. To
obviate this distressing sort of plundering, I still served out
beads to my men, and so kept them in hand a little; but they were
fearfully unruly, and did not like my interference with what by
the laws of the country they considered their right.
Here I had to stop a day for some of N'yamgundu's women, who, in
my hurry at leaving Maula's, were left behind. A letter from
Grant was now brought to me by a very nice-looking young man, who
had the skin of a leopard-cat (F. Serval) tied round his neck - a
badge which royal personages only were entitled to wear.
N'yamgundu seeing this, as he knew the young man was not entitled
to wear it, immediately ordered his "children" to wrench it from
him. Two ruffianly fellows then seized him by his hands, and
twisted his arms round and round until I thought they would come
out of their sockets.
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