I Knew This Was All Humbug, Of Course, And I Told Him
So; But It Was Of No Use, And I Was Compelled To Halt.
On the 23d another officer, named Maribu, came to me and said,
Mtesa, having heard that Grant was left sick behind at Karague,
had given him orders to go there and fetch him, whether sick or
well, for Mtesa was most anxious to see white men.
Hearing this
I at once wrote to Grant, begging him to come on if he could do
so, and to bring with him all the best of my property, or as much
as he could of it, as I now saw there was more cunning humbug
than honesty in what Rumanika had told me about the impossibility
of our going north from Uganda, as well as in his saying sick men
could not go into Uganda, and donkeys without trousers would not
be admitted there, because they were considered indecent. If he
was not well enough to move, I advised him to wait there until I
reached Mtesa's, when I would either go up the lake and Kitangule
to fetch him away, or would make the king send boats for him,
which I more expressly wished, as it would tend to give us a much
better knowledge of the lake.
Maula now came again, after receiving repeated and angry
messages, and I forced him to make a move. He led me straight up
to his home, a very nice place, in which he gave me a very large,
clean, and comfortable hut - had no end of plantains brought for
me and my men - and said, "Now you have really entered the kingdom
of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 344 of 767
Words from 94544 to 94837
of 210958
