Delays And Subterfuges, However, Soon Came To Damp Our
Spirits.
The acting officer was sent for, and asked for the
boats; they were all scattered, and could not be collected for a
day or two; but, even if they were at hand, no boat ever went up
or down the river.
The chief was away and would be sent for, as
the king often changed his orders, and, after all, might not mean
what had been said. The district belonged to the Sakibobo, and
no representative of his had come here. These excuses, of course,
would not satisfy us. The boats must be collected, seven, if
there are not ten, for we must try them, and come to some
understanding about them, before we march up stream, when, if the
officer values his life, he will let us have them, and
acknowledge Karoso as the king's representative, otherwise a
complaint will be sent to the palace, for we won't stand
trifling.
We were now confronting Usoga, a country which may be said to be
the very counterpart of Uganda in its richness and beauty. Here
the people use such huge iron-headed spears with short handles,
that, on seeing one to-day, my people remarked that they were
better fitted for digging potatoes than piercing men. Elephants,
as we had seen by their devastations during the last two marches,
were very numerous in this neighbourhood. Till lately, a party
from Unyoro, ivory-hunting, had driven them away. Lions were
also described as very numerous and destructive to human life.
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