Continuing over the same kind of ground in the next succeeding spurs of the streaky red-clay sandstone hills, we put up at the residence of Isamgevi, a Mkungu or district officer of Rumanika's. His residence was as well kept as Mtesa's uncle's; but instead of a baraza fronting his house, he had a small enclosure, with three small huts in it, kept apart for devotional purposes, or to propitiate the evil spirits—in short, according to the notions of the place, a church. This officer gave me a cow and some plantains, and I in return gave him a wire and some beads. Many mendicant women, called by some Wichwezi, by others Mabandwa, all wearing the most fantastic dresses of mbugu, covered with beads, shells, and sticks, danced before us, singing a comic song, the chorus of which was a long shrill rolling Coo-roo-coo-roo, coo-roo-coo-roo, delivered as they came to a standstill. Their true functions were just as obscure as the religion of the negroes generally; some called them devil-drivers, other evil-eye averters; but, whatever it was for, they imposed a tax on the people, whose minds being governed by a necessity for making some self-sacrifice to propitiate something, they could not tell what, for their welfare in the world, they always gave them a trifle in the same way as the East Indians do their fakirs.
After crossing another low swampy flat, we reached a much larger group, or rather ramification, of hill-spurs pointing to the N'yanza, called Kisuere, and commanded by M'yombo, Rumanika's frontier officer. Immediately behind this, to the northward, commenced the kingdom of Unyoro; and here it was, they said, Baraka would branch off my line on his way to Kamrasi. Maula's home was one march distant from this, so the scoundrel now left me to enjoy himself there, giving as his pretext for doing so, that Mtesa required him, as soon as I arrived here, to send on a messenger that order might be taken for my proper protection on the line of march; for the Waganda were a turbulent set of people, who could only be kept in order by the executioner; and doubtless many, as was customary on such occasions, would be beheaded, as soon as Mtesa heard of my coming, to put the rest in a fright. I knew this was all humbug, of course, and I told him so; but it was of no use, and I was compelled to halt.
On the 23d another officer, named Maribu, came to me and said, Mtesa, having heard that Grant was left sick behind at Karague, had given him orders to go there and fetch him, whether sick or well, for Mtesa was most anxious to see white men. Hearing this I at once wrote to Grant, begging him to come on if he could do so, and to bring with him all the best of my property, or as much as he could of it, as I now saw there was more cunning humbug than honesty in what Rumanika had told me about the impossibility of our going north from Uganda, as well as in his saying sick men could not go into Uganda, and donkeys without trousers would not be admitted there, because they were considered indecent. If he was not well enough to move, I advised him to wait there until I reached Mtesa's, when I would either go up the lake and Kitangule to fetch him away, or would make the king send boats for him, which I more expressly wished, as it would tend to give us a much better knowledge of the lake.
Maula now came again, after receiving repeated and angry messages, and I forced him to make a move. He led me straight up to his home, a very nice place, in which he gave me a very large, clean, and comfortable hut—had no end of plantains brought for me and my men—and said, "Now you have really entered the kingdom of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food. At every place that you stop for the day, the officer in charge will bring you plantains, otherwise your men can help themselves in the gardens, for such are the laws of the land when a king's guest travels in it. Any one found selling anything to either yourself or your men would be punished." Accordingly, I stopped the daily issue of beads; but no sooner had I done so, than all my men declared they could not eat plantains. It was all very well, they said, for the Waganda to do so, because they were used to it, but it did not satisfy their hunger.
Maula, all smirks and smiles, on seeing me order the things out for the march, begged I would have patience, and wait till the messenger returned from the king; it would not take more than ten days at the most. Much annoyed at this nonsense, I ordered my tent to be pitched. I refused all Maula's plantains, and gave my men beads to buy grain with; and, finding it necessary to get up some indignation, said I would not stand being chained like a dog; if he would not go on ahead, I should go without him. Maula then said he would go to a friend's and come back again. I said, if he did not, I should go off; and so the conversation ended.
26th.—Drumming, singing, screaming, yelling, and dancing had been going on these last two days and two nights to drive the Phepo or devil out of a village. The whole of the ceremonies were most ludicrous. An old man and woman, smeared with white mud, and holding pots of pombe in their laps, sat in front of a hut, whilst other people kept constantly bringing them baskets full of plantain-squash, and more pots of pombe. In the courtyard fronting them, were hundreds of men and women dressed in smart mbugus—the males wearing for turbans, strings of abrus-seeds wound round their heads, with polished boars' tusks stuck in in a jaunty manner. These were the people who, drunk as fifers, were keeping up such a continual row to frighten the devil away. In the midst of this assembly I now found Kachuchu, Rumanika's representative, who went on ahead from Karague palace to tell Mtesa that I wished to see him. With him, he said, were two other Wakungu of Mtesa's, who had orders to bring on my party and Dr K'yengo's. Mtesa, he said, was so mad to see us, that the instant he arrived at the palace and told him we wished to visit him, the king caused "fifty big men and four hundred small ones" to be executed, because, he said, his subjects were so bumptious they would not allow any visitors to come near him, else he would have had white men before.
27th.—N'yamgundu, my old friend at Usui, then came to me, and said he was the first man to tell Mtesa of our arrival in Usui, and wish to visit him. The handkerchief I had given Irungu at Usui to present as a letter to Mtesa he had snatched away from him, and given, himself, to his king, who no sooner received it than he bound it round his head, and said, in ecstasies of delight, "Oh, the Mzungu, the Mzungu! he does indeed want to see me." Then giving him four cows as a return letter to take to me, he said, "Hurry off as quickly as possible and bring him here." "The cows," said N'yamgundu, "have gone on to Kisuere by another route, but I will bring them here; and then, as Maula is taking you, I will go and fetch Grant." I then told him not to be in such a hurry. I had turned off Maula for treating me like a dog, and I would not be escorted by him again. He replied that his orders would not be fully accomplished as long as any part of my establishment was behind; so he would, if I wished it, leave part of his "children" to guide me on to Mtesa's, whilst he went to fetch Grant. An officer, I assured him, had just gone on to fetch Grant, so he need not trouble his head on that score; at any rate, he might reverse his plan, and send his children for Grant, whilst he went on with me, by which means he would fully accomplish his mission. Long arguments ensued, and I at length turned the tables by asking who was the greatest—myself or my children; when he said, "As I see you are the greatest, I will do as you wish; and after fetching the cows from Kisuere, we will march to-morrow at sunrise."
The sun rose, but N'yamgundu did not appear. I was greatly annoyed lest Maula should come and try to drive him away. I waited, restraining my impatience until noon, when, as I could stand it no longer, I ordered Bombay to strike my tent, and commence the march. A scene followed, which brought out my commander-in-chief's temper in a rather surprising shape. "How can we go in?" said Bombay. "Strike the tent," said I. "Who will guide us?" said Bombay. "Strike the tent," I said again. "But Rumanika's men have all gone away, and there is no one to show us the way." "Never mind; obey my orders, and strike the tent." Then, as Bombay would not do it, I commenced myself, assisted by some of my other men, and pulled it down over his head, all the women who were assembled under it, and all the property. On this, Bombay flew into a passion, abusing the men who were helping me, as there were fires and powder-boxes under the tent. I of course had to fly into a passion and abuse Bombay. He, in a still greater rage, said he would pitch into the men, for the whole place would be blown up. "That is no reason why you should abuse my men," I said, "who are better than you by obeying my orders. If I choose to blow up my property, that is my look-out; and if you don't do your duty, I will blow you up also." Foaming and roaring with rage, Bombay said he would not stand being thus insulted. I then gave him a dig on the head with my fist. He squared up, and pouted like an enraged chameleon, looking savagely at me. I gave him another dig, which sent him staggering. He squared again: I gave him another; till at last, as the claret was flowing, he sulked off, and said he would not serve me any more. I then gave Nasib orders to take Bombay's post, and commence the march; but the good old man made Bombay give in, and off we went, amidst crowds of Waganda, who had collected to witness with comedy, and were all digging at one another's heads, showing off in pantomime the strange ways of the white man. N'yamgundu then jointed us, and begged us to halt only one more day, as some of his women were still at Kisuere; but Bombay, showing his nozzle rather flatter than usual, said, "No; I got this on account of your lies. I won't tell Bana any more of your excuses for stopping; you may tell him yourself if you like." N'yamgundu, however, did not think this advisable, and so we went on as we were doing. It was the first and last time I had ever occasion to lose my dignity by striking a blow with my own hands; but I could not help it on this occasion without losing command and respect; for although I often had occasion to award 100 and even 150 lashes to my men for stealing, I could not, for the sake of due subordination, allow any inferior officer to strike Bombay, and therefore had to do the work myself.
Skirting the hills on the left, with a large low plain to the right we soon came on one of those numerous rush-drains that appear to me to be the last waters left of the old bed of the N'yanza. This one in particular was rather large, being 150 yards wide. It was sunk where I crossed it, like a canal, 14 feet below the plain; and what with mire and water combined, so deep, I was obliged to take off my trousers whilst fording it. Once across, we sought for and put up in a village beneath a small hill, from the top of which I saw the Victoria N'yanza for the first time on this march. N'yamgundu delighted me much: treating me as king, he always fell down on his knees to address me, and made all his "children" look after my comfort in camp.
We marched on again over the same kind of ground, alternately crossing rush-drains of minor importance, though provokingly frequent, and rich gardens, from which, as we passed, all the inhabitants bolted at the sound of our drums, knowing well that they would be seized and punished if found gazing at the king's visitors. Even on our arrival at Ukara not one soul was visible. The huts of the villagers were shown to myself and my men without any ceremony. The Wanyambo escort stole what they liked out of them, and I got into no end of troubles trying to stop the practice; for they said the Waganda served them the same way when they went to Karague, and they had a right to retaliate now. To obviate this distressing sort of plundering, I still served out beads to my men, and so kept them in hand a little; but they were fearfully unruly, and did not like my interference with what by the laws of the country they considered their right.