26th. - To-Day, To Amuse The King, I Drew A Picture Of Himself
Holding A Levee, And Proceeded To Visit Him.
On the way I found
the highroad thronged with cattle captured in Unyoro; and on
arrival at the ante-chamber, amongst the officers in waiting,
Masimbi (Mr Cowries or Shells), the queen's uncle, and Congow, a
young general, who once led an army into Unyoro, past Kamrasi's
palace.
They said they had obtained leave for me to visit them,
and were eagerly looking out for the happy event. At once, on
firing, I was admitted to the king's favourite place, which, now
that the king had a movable chair to sit upon, was the shade of
the court screen. We had a chat; the picture was shown to the
women; the king would like to have some more, and gave me leave
to draw in the palace any time I liked. At the same time he
asked for my paint-box, merely to look at it. Though I
repeatedly dunned him for it, I could never get it back from him
until I was preparing to leave Uganda.
27th. - After breakfast I started on a visit to Congow; but
finding he had gone to the king as usual, called at Masimbi's and
he being absent also, I took advantage of my proximity to the
queen's palace to call on her majesty. For hours I was kept
waiting; firstly, because she was at breakfast; secondly, because
she was "putting on medicine"; and, thirdly, because the sun was
too powerful for her complexion; when I became tired of her
nonsense, and said, "If she does not wish to see me, she had
better say so at once, else I shall walk away; for the last time
I came I saw her but for a minute, when she rudely turned her
back upon me, and left me sitting by myself." I was told not to
be in a hurry - she would see me in the evening. This promise
might probably be fulfilled six blessed hours from the time when
it was made; but I thought to myself, every place in Uganda is
alike when there is no company at home, and so I resolved to sit
the time out, like Patience on a monument, hoping something funny
might turn up after all.
At last her majesty stumps out, squats behind my red blanket,
which is converted into a permanent screen, and says hastily, or
rather testily, "Can't Bana perceive the angry state of the
weather? - clouds flying about, and the wind blowing half a gale?
Whenever that is the case, I cannot venture out." Taking her lie
without an answer, I said, I had now been fifty days or so doing
nothing in Uganda - not one single visitor of my own rank ever
came near me, and I could not associated with people far below
her condition and mine - in fact, all I had to amuse me at home
now was watching a hen lay her eggs upon my spare bed.
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