Should the throne be lost or stolen, the authority of the king would disappear, together with the talisman, and disorder would reign throughout the country until the precious object should be restored.
CHAPTER XIX.
RESTORATION OF THE LIBERATED SLAVES.
The work had now fairly commenced, and Kabba Rega and his chiefs were assured of a grand reform. Already the slave-hunters had been punished: the vakeel, Suleiman, was secured in the stocks, and the slaves that had been kidnapped had been restored to their homes in Unyoro. I now determined to insist upon the restoration of all the Unyoro slaves that had been carried away from this country, and were captives in the zareebas of Fatiko, Fabbo, Faloro, and Farragenia. From the descriptions of Kabba Rega and his chiefs, I considered that these prisoners amounted to about a thousand persons—women and children.
Umbogo, the interpreter, declared that Abou Saood's companies would attack the government troops, should I insist upon the liberation of the slaves. He had lived with these slave-hunters, and he had frequently heard them declare, that, "should the Pacha ever arrive in this country, and insist upon the suppression of slavery, they would shoot him rather than lose their slaves." I treated this idea as an absurdity.
At the same time that Kabba Rega and his people were eager for the restoration of the numerous women and children that had been stolen from Unyoro, they were themselves great slave-dealers.
M'tese, the powerful King of Uganda, on the southern frontier of Unyoro, was in the habit of purchasing ivory in that country for the merchants of Zanzibar.
These purchases were made by an exchange of slaves, brass-coil bracelets, and long cotton shirts; which were either of British or Indian manufacture, that had arrived via Zanzibar.
M'tese, with his usual sagacity, did not permit the merchants of that country to enter Uganda in force, but he received from them both slaves and merchandise, which he sent into the surrounding countries for the purchase of ivory. He thus monopolized the trade, and kept the price at a minimum.
In Unyoro there was an established value for a healthy young girl. Such a person was equal to a single elephant's tusk of the first class, or to a new shirt. Thus a girl could be purchased for a shirt, and she might be subsequently exchanged for a large elephant's tusk.