Usually These Men Despise Clothes, And Never Deign To Put Any
Covering On Except Out Of Respect, When Visiting Kamrasi.
Their
"sou'-wester"-shaped wigs are made of other men's hair, as the
negro hair will not grow long enough.
A message came from Ukero,
the governor-general of Chopi, to request we would not go down
the river in boats to-morrow, lest the Chopi ferrymen at the
falls should take fright at our strange appearance, paddle
precipitately across the river, hide their boats, and be seen no
more.
We started, leaving all the traps and men to follow, and made
this place in a stride, as a whisper warned me that Kamrasi's
officers, who are as thick as thieves about here, had made up
their minds to keep us each one day at his abode, and show us
"hospitality." Such was the case, for they all tried their powers
of persuasion, which failing, they took the alternative of making
my men all drunk, and sending to camp sundry pots of pombe. The
ground on the line of march was highly cultivated, and
intersected by a deep ravine of running water, whose sundry
branches made the surface very irregular. The sand-paper tree,
whose leaves resemble a cat's tongue in roughness, and which is
used in Uganda for polishing their clubs and spear-handles, was
conspicuous; but at the end of the journey only was there
anything of much interest to be seen. There suddenly, in a deep
ravine one hundred yards below us, the formerly placid river, up
which vessels of moderate size might steam two or three abreast,
was now changed into a turbulent torrent.
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