Great Applause
Followed This Wonderful Feat, And The Cows Were Given To My Men.
The king now loaded one of the carbines I had given him with his
own hands, and giving it
Full-cock to a page, told him to go out
and shoot a man in the outer court; which was no sooner
accomplished than the little urchin returned to announce his
success, with a look of glee such as one would see in the face of
a boy who had robbed a bird's nest, caught a trout, or done any
other boyish trick. The king said to him, "And did you do it
well?" "Oh, yes, capitally." He spoke the truth, no doubt, for
he dared not have trifled with the king; but the affair created
hardly any interest. I never heard, and there appeared no
curiosity to know, what individual human being the urchin had
deprived of life.
The Wakungu were not dismissed, and I asked to draw near, when
the king showed me a book I had given to Rumanika, and begged for
the inspiring medicine which he had before applied for through
the mystic stick. The day was now gone, so torches were lit, and
we were ordered to go, though as yet I had not been able to speak
one word I wished to impart about Petherick and Grant; for my
interpreters were so afraid of the king they dared not open their
mouths until they were spoken to. The king was now rising to go,
when, in great fear and anxiety that the day would be lost, I
said, in Kisuahili, "I wish you would send a letter by post to
Grant, and also send a boat up the Kitangule, as far as
Rumanika's palace, for him, for he is totally unable to walk." I
thus attracted his notice, though he did not understand one word
I uttered. The result was, that he waited for the
interpretation, and replied that a post would be no use, for no
one would be responsible for the safe delivery of the message; he
would send N'yamgundu to fetch him, but he thought Rumanika would
not consent to his sending boats up the Kitangule as far as the
Little Windermere; and then, turning round with true Mganda
impetuosity, he walked away without taking a word from me in
exchange.
24th. - Early this morning the pages came to say Mtesa desired I
would send him three of my Wanguaga to shoot cows before him.
This was just what I wanted. It had struck me that personal
conferences with me so roused the excitable king, that there was
no bringing plain matters of business home to him; so, detaching
seven men with Bombay, I told him, before shooting, to be sure
and elicit the matter I wanted - which was, to excite the king's
cupidity by telling him I had a boat full of stores with two
white men at Gani, whom I wished to call to me if he would
furnish some guides to accompany my men; and further, as Grant
could not walk, I wished boats sent for him, at least as far as
the ferry on the Kitangule, to which place Rumanika, at any rate,
would slip him down in canoes.
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