I
Added My Excuses For Kamrasi, And Laid A Complaint Against
Mtesa's Officers For Having Defrauded Us Out Of Ten Cows, Five
Goats, Six Butter, And Sixty Mbugu.
It was not that we required
these things, but I knew that the king had ordered them to be
given to us, and I thought it right we should show that his
officers, if they professed to obey his orders, had peculated.
After these men had started, some friends of the villager who had
been apprehended on the charge of assailing my men, came and
offered Budja five cows to overlook the charge; and Budja, though
he could not overlook it when I pleaded for the man, asked me to
recall my men. Discovering that the culprit was a queen's man,
and that the affair would cause bad blood at court should the
king order the man's life to be taken, I tried to do so, but
things had gone too far.
Again the expedition marched on in the right direction. We
reached the last village on the Uganda frontier, and there spent
the night. Here Grant shot a nsunnu buck. The Wanguana mutinied
for ammunition, and would not lift a load until they got it,
saying, "Unyoro is a dangerous country," though they had been
there before without any more than they now had in pouch. The
fact was, my men, in consequence of the late issues on the river,
happened to have more than Grant's men, and every man must have
alike. The ringleader, unfortunately for himself, had lately
fired at a dead lion, to astonish the Unyoro, and his chum had
fired a salute, which was contrary to orders; for ammunition was
at a low ebb, and I had done everything in my power to nurse it.
Therefore, as a warning to the others, the guns of these two were
confiscated, and a caution given that any gun in future let off,
either by design or accident, would be taken.
To-day I felt very thankful to get across the much-vexed
boundary-line, and enter Unyoro, guided by Kamrasi's deputation
of officers, and so shake off the apprehensions which had teased
us for so many days. This first march was a picture of all the
country to its capital: an interminable forest of small trees,
bush, and tall grass, with scanty villages, low huts, and dirty-
looking people clad in skins; the plantain, sweet potato,
sesamum, and ulezi (millet) forming the chief edibles, besides
goats and fowls; whilst the cows, which are reported to be
numerous, being kept, as everywhere else where pasture-lands are
good, by the wandering, unsociable Wahuma are seldom seen. No
hills, except a few scattered cones, disturb the level surface of
the land, and no pretty views ever cheer the eye. Uganda is now
entirely left behind; we shall not see its like again; for the
further one leaves the equator, and the rain-attracting
influences of the Mountains of the Moon, vegetation decreases
proportionately with the distance.
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