Start Again, And After Drinking Pombe With Nango, When We Heard
That Three Wakungu Had Been Seized At Kari, In
Consequence of the
murder, the march was commenced, but soon after stopped by the
mischievous machinations of our guide, who
Pretended it was too
late in the day to cross the jungles on ahead, either by the road
to the source or the palace, and therefore would not move till
the morning; then, leaving us, on the pretext of business, he
vanished, and was never seen again. A small black fly, with
thick shoulders and bullet-head, infests the place, and torments
the naked arms and legs of the people with its sharp stings to an
extent that must render life miserable to them.
After a long struggling march, plodding through huge grasses and
jungle, we reached a district which I cannot otherwise describe
than by calling it a "Church Estate." It is dedicated in some
mysterious manner to Lubari (Almighty), and although the king
appeared to have authority over some of the inhabitants of it,
yet others had apparently a sacred character, exempting them from
the civil power, and he had no right to dispose of the land
itself. In this territory there are small villages only at every
fifth mile, for there is no road, and the lands run high again,
whilst, from want of a guide, we often lost the track. It now
transpired that Budja, when he told at the palace that there was
no road down the banks of the Nile, did so in consequence of his
fear that if he sent my whole party here they would rob these
church lands, and so bring him into a scrape with the wizards or
ecclesiastical authorities.
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