- Some other travellers from the north again
informed us that they had heard of Wanguana who attempted to
trade in Gani and Chopi, but were killed by the natives.
I now
assured Rumanika that in two or three years he would have a
greater trade with Egypt than he ever could have with Zanzibar;
for when I opened the road, all those men he heard of would swarm
up here to visit him. He, however, only laughed at my folly in
proposing to go to a place of which all I heard was merely that
every stranger who went there was killed. He began to show a
disinclination to allow my going there, and though from the most
friendly intention, this view was alarming, for one word from him
could have ruined my projects. As it was, I feared my followers
might take fright and refuse to advance with me. I thought it
good policy to talk of there being many roads leading through
Africa, so that Rumanika might see he had not got, as he thought,
the sole key to the interior. I told him again of certain views
I once held of coming to see him from the north up the Nile, and
from the east through the Masai. He observed that, "To open
either of those routes, you would require at least two hundred
guns." He would, however, do something when we returned from
Uganda; for as Mtesa followed his advice in everything, so did
Kamrasi, for both held the highest opinion of him.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 311 of 767
Words from 85145 to 85405
of 210958
