Should my powder explode, I should be entirely
defenceless. Accordingly, after a conflagration in my neighbourhood, I
insisted upon removing all huts within a circuit of thirty yards of my
dwelling: the natives demurring, I at once ordered my men to pull down
the houses, and thereby relieved myself from drunken and dangerous
neighbours.
Although we had been regularly supplied with beef by the king, we now
found it most difficult to procure fowls; the war with Fowooka had
occasioned the destruction of nearly all the poultry in the
neighbourhood of Kisoona, as Kamrasi and his kojoors (magicians) were
occupied with daily sacrifices, deducing prognostications of coming
events from the appearances of the entrails of the birds slain. The king
was surrounded by sorcerers, both men and women; these people were
distinguished from others by witch-like chaplets of various dried roots
worn upon the head; some of them had dried lizards, crocodiles' teeth,
lions' claws, minute tortoise-shells, &c. added to their collection of
charms. They could have subscribed to the witches' cauldron of Macbeth:
"Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
On the first appearance of these women, many of whom were old and
haggard, I felt inclined to repeat Banquo's question: "What are these,
so withered and so wild in their attire, that look not like the
inhabitants o' the earth, and yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
that man may question?"
In such witches and wizards Kamrasi and his people believed implicitly.
Bacheeta, and also my men, told me that when my wife was expected to die
during the attack of coup de soleil, the guide had procured a witch, who
had killed a fowl to question it, "Whether she would recover and reach
the lake?" The fowl in its dying struggle protruded its tongue, which
sign is considered affirmative; after this reply the natives had no
doubt of the result. These people, although far superior to the tribes
on the north of the Nile in general intelligence, had no idea of a
Supreme Being, nor any object of worship, their faith resting upon a
simple belief in magic like that of the natives of Madi and Obbo.
Some weeks passed without a reply from Shooa to the letter I had
forwarded by my men, neither had any news been received of their
arrival; we had relapsed into the usual monotony of existence. This was
happily broken by a most important event.
On the 6th September, M'Gambi came to my hut in a state of great
excitement, with the intelligence that the M'was, the natives of Uganda,
had invaded Kamrasi's country with a large army; that they had already
crossed the Kafoor river and had captured M'rooli, and that they were
marching through the country direct to Kisoona, with the intention of
killing Kamrasi and of attacking us, and annexing the country of Unyoro
to M'tese's dominions.
