Returning Homewards, The Afternoon Was Spent At A
Hospitable Officer's, Who Would Not Allow Us To Depart Until My
Men Were All Fuddled With Pombe, And The Evening Setting In
Warned Us To Wend Our Way.
On arrival at camp, the king, quite
shocked with himself for having deserted me, asked me if I did
not hear his guns fire.
He had sent twenty officers to scour the
country, looking for me everywhere. He had been on the lake the
whole day himself, and was now amusing his officers with a little
archery practice, even using the bow himself, and making them
shoot by turns. A lucky shot brought forth immense applause, all
jumping and n'yanzigging with delight, whether it was done by
their own bows or the king's.
A shield was the mark, stuck up at only thirty paces; still they
were such bad shots that they hardly ever hit it. Now tired of
this slow sport, and to show his superior prowess, the king
ordered sixteen shields to be placed before him, one in front of
the other, and with one shot from Whitworth pierced the whole of
them, the bullet passing through the bosses of nearly every one.
"Ah!" says the king, strutting about with gigantic strides, and
brandishing the rifle over his head before all his men, "what is
the use of spears and bows? I shall never fight with anything
but guns in the future." These Wakungu, having only just then
returned from plundering Unyoro, had never before seen their king
in a chair, or anybody sitting, as I was, by his side; and it
being foreign to their notions, as well as, perhaps, unpleasant
to their feelings, to find a stranger sitting higher than
themselves, they complained against this outrage to custom, and
induced the king to order my dethronement. The result was, as my
iron stool was objectionable, I stood for a moment to see that I
thoroughly understood their meaning; and then showing them my
back, walked straightway home to make a grass throne, and dodge
them that way.
There was nothing for dinner last night, nothing again this
morning, yet no one would go in to report this fact, as rain was
falling, and the king was shut up with his women. Presently the
thought struck me that the rifle, which was always infallible in
gaining me admittance at the palace, might be of the same service
now. I therefore shot a dove close to the royal abode, and, as I
expected, roused the king at once, who sent his pages to know
what the firing was about. When told the truth - that I had been
trying to shoot a dish of doves for breakfast, as I could get
neither meat nor drink from his kitchen - the head boy, rather
guessing than understanding what was told him, distorted my
message, and said to the king, as I could not obtain a regular
supply of food from his house, I did not wish to accept anything
further at his hands, but intended foraging for the future in the
jungles.
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