This was a little difficult to answer, so I told him to watch.
Mkuni took my words literally; he did watch. He could be seen daily perched upon a rock overlooking the work, surrounded by a large number of his own people.
From time to time strangers from inland added to the watchers. To all Mkuni held forth:
"Am not I an old man now? Have I not killed many in battle? Did I not take the thundering smoke from a certain person? Who then knows so much of the building of bridges as I?"
With this inconsequent line of argument the crowd of watchers would murmur full agreement.
"When a man builds a small hut, is a pole from the ground to the roof necessary?"
"No," from his audience.
"That is true, but if a man builds a hut as high as Heaven, is not a pole necessary?"
All agreed that it was so.
"But see now these white men, who build a bridge across the thundering smoke. It is not the King of the white men who builds, nor he who collects from us the Hut Tax, but strangers. They build this bridge from the north bank and from the south, but where is the pole to hold up the roof of the bridge?"