An old man and woman, smeared with white
mud, and holding pots of pombe in their laps, sat in front of a
hut, whilst other people kept constantly bringing them baskets
full of plantain-squash, and more pots of pombe.
In the
courtyard fronting them, were hundreds of men and women dressed
in smart mbugus - the males wearing for turbans, strings of
abrus-seeds wound round their heads, with polished boars' tusks
stuck in in a jaunty manner. These were the people who, drunk as
fifers, were keeping up such a continual row to frighten the
devil away. In the midst of this assembly I now found Kachuchu,
Rumanika's representative, who went on ahead from Karague palace
to tell Mtesa that I wished to see him. With him, he said, were
two other Wakungu of Mtesa's, who had orders to bring on my party
and Dr K'yengo's. Mtesa, he said, was so mad to see us, that the
instant he arrived at the palace and told him we wished to visit
him, the king caused "fifty big men and four hundred small ones"
to be executed, because, he said, his subjects were so bumptious
they would not allow any visitors to come near him, else he would
have had white men before.
27th. - N'yamgundu, my old friend at Usui, then came to me, and
said he was the first man to tell Mtesa of our arrival in Usui,
and wish to visit him.
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