In Reply, I Said I Would Not Listen To Them, As I Had
Seen Enough Of Them To Know It
Was no use speaking to a pack of
unreasonable cowards, having tried it so often before; but I sent
a
Message requesting them, if they did desert me at last, to
leave my guns; and, further, added an intimation that, as soon as
they reached the coast, they would be put into prison for three
years. The scoundrels insolently said "tuende setu" (let's be
off), rushed to the Waganda drums, and beat the march.
1st. - Early in the morning, as Budja drummed the home march, I
called him up, gave him a glass rain-gauge as a letter for Mtesa,
and instructed him to say I would send a man to Mtesa as soon as
I had seen Kamrasi about opening the road; that I trusted he
would take all the guns from the deserters and keep them for me,
but the men themselves I wished transported to an island on the
N'yanza, for I could never allow such scoundrels again to enter
my camp. It was the effect of desertions like these that
prevented any white men visiting these countries. This said, the
Waganda all left us, taking with them twenty-eight Wanguana,
armed with twenty-two carbines. Amongst them was the wretched
governess, Manamaka, who had always thought me a wonderful
magician, because I possessed, in her belief, an extraordinary
power in inclining all the black kings' hearts to me, and induced
them to give the roads no one before of my colour had ever
attempted to use.
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