Finally, The Little Boy Lugoi
Had Been Sent To His Home.
Such was the tenor of Bombay's report.
11th. - The officer sent to procure boats, impudently saying there
were none, was put in the stocks by Kasoro, whilst other men went
to Kirindi for sailors, and down the stream for boats. On
hearing the king's order that I was to be supplied with fish, the
fishermen ran away, and pombe was no longer brewed for fear of
Kasoro.
12th. - To-day we slaughtered and cooked two cows for the journey-
- the remaining three and one goat having been lost in the
Luajerri - and gave the women of the place beads in return for
their hospitality. They are nearly all Wanyoro, having been
captured in that country by king Mtesa and given to Mlondo. They
said their teeth were extracted, four to six lower incisors, when
they were young, because no Myoro would allow a person to drink
from his cup unless he conformed to that custom. The same law
exists in Usoga.
Chapter XVI
Bahr El Abiad
First Voyage on the Nile - The Starting - Description of the River
and the Country - Meet a Hostile Vessel - A Naval Engagement -
Difficulties and Dangers - Judicial Procedure - Messages from the
King of Uganda - His Efforts to get us back - Desertion - The
Wanyoro Troops - Kamrasi - Elephant-Stalking - Diabolical
Possessions.
In five boats of five planks each, tied together and caulked with
mbugu rags, I started with twelve Wanguana, Kasoro and his page-
followers, and a small crew, to reach Kamrasi's palace in Unyoro-
-goats, dogs, and kit, besides grain and dried meat, filling up
the complement - but how many days it would take nobody knew.
Paddles propelled these vessels, but the lazy crew were slow in
the use of them, indulging sometimes in racing spurts, then
composedly resting on their paddles whilst the gentle current
drifted us along. The river, very unlike what it was from the
Ripon Falls downward, bore at once the character of river and
lake - clear in the centre, but fringed in most places with tall
rush, above which the green banks sloped back like park lands.
It was all very pretty and very interesting, and would have
continued so, had not Kasoro disgraced the Union Jack, turning it
to piratical purposes in less than one hour.
A party of Wanyoro, in twelve or fifteen canoes, made of single
tree trunks, had come up the river to trade with the Wasoga, and
having stored their vessels with mbugu, dried fish, plantains
cooked and raw, pombe, and other things, were taking their last
meal on shore before they returned to their homes. Kasoro seeing
this, and bent on a boyish spree, quite forgetting we were bound
for the very ports they were bound for, ordered our sailors to
drive in amongst them, landed himself, and sent the Wanyoro
flying before I knew what game was up, and then set to pillaging
and feasting on the property of those very men whom it was our
interest to propitiate, as we expected them shortly to be our
hosts.
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