16th. - The king to-day inquired after my health, and, strange to
say, did not accompany his message with a begging request.
17th. - My respite, however, was not long. At the earliest
possible hour in the morning the king sent begging for things one
hundred times refused, supposing, apparently, that I had some
little reserve store which I wished to conceal from him.
18th and 19th. - I sent Bombay to the palace to beg for pombe, as
it was the only thing I had an appetite for, but the king would
see no person but myself. He had broken his rifle washing-rod,
and this must be mended, the pages who brought it saying that no
one dared take it back to him until it was repaired. A guinea-
fowl was sent after dark for me to see, as a proof that the king
was a sportsman complete.
20th. - The king going out shooting borrowed my powder-horn. The
Wanguana mobbed the hut and bullied me for food, merely because
they did not like the trouble of helping themselves from the
king's garden, though they knew I had purchased their privilege
to do so at the price of a gold chronometer and the best guns
England could produce.
21st. - I now, for the first time, saw the way in which the king
collected his army together.
