Had My Party Not Been Under Control,
We Could Not Have Put Up Here; But On My Being Answerable That No
Thefts Should Take Place, The People Kindly Consented To Provide
Us With Board And Lodgings, And We Found Them Very Obliging.
One
elderly man, half-witted - they said the king had driven his
senses from him by seizing his house
And family - came at once on
hearing of our arrival, laughing and singing in a loose jaunty
maniacal manner, carrying odd sticks, shells, and a bundle of
mbugu rags, which he deposited before me, dancing and singing
again, then retreating and bringing some more, with a few
plantains from a garden, when I was to eat, as kings lived upon
flesh, and "poor Tom" wanted some, for he lived with lions and
elephants in a hovel beyond the gardens, and his belly was empty.
He was precisely a black specimen of the English parish idiot.
At last, with a good push for it, crossing hills and threading
huge grasses, as well as extensive village plantations lately
devastated by elephants - they had eaten all that was eatable, and
what would not serve for food they had destroyed with their
trunks, not one plantain or one hut being left entire - we arrived
at the extreme end of the journey, the farthest point ever
visited by the expedition on the same parallel of latitude as
king Mtesa's palace, and just forty miles east of it.
We were well rewarded; for the "stones," as the Waganda call the
falls, was by far the most interesting sight I had seen in
Africa.
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