The station was progressing rapidly. The soil was of such extraordinary richness that the seeds sprang up like magic. On the third day after sowing, the cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and cotton seeds, showed themselves above ground.
I had made a broad walk of red gravel from Kabba Rega's new divan, to the government house. The roads and approaches were finished, and all neatly laid with fresh gravel stamped firmly down. The borders of all paths and roads were sown with the best quality of Egyptian cotton, known in Egypt as galleen. My large tent was pitched beneath an immense banian-tree, close to which was the new government house. This grand-sounding name was given to a very solid construction of a most simple character. The divan was a building containing only one room twenty-eight feet long by fourteen wide, and about twenty feet high. It was carefully thatched with overhanging eaves, which formed a narrow verandah, and it was entered by a commodious porch; this was arched in the native fashion, and was so large that it formed a lobby, in which we sometimes dined. The inside walls of the divan were neatly made with canes closely lashed together.
There was a back door to this public room which communicated with a separate house by a covered way.
This was our private residence, which also consisted of only one room; but I had arranged it with extreme neatness, in order to excite the admiration of Kabba Rega and his chiefs, who would, I hoped, imitate the manners and customs of civilized life, and thus improve trade.
The room was twenty-four feet long by thirteen wide. The walls were as usual made of canes, but these were carefully hung with scarlet blankets, sewn together and stretched to the ground, so as to form an even surface. The floor was covered with mats. Upon the walls opposite to each other, so as to throw endless reflection, were two large oval mirrors (girandoles) in gilt metal frames. A photograph of her Majesty the Queen stood on the toilet table.
At the extreme end of the room was a very good coloured print, nearly life size, of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales. The scarlet walls were hung with large coloured prints, life size, of very beautiful women, with very gorgeous dresses, all the jewelry being imitated by pieces of coloured tinsel. A number of sporting prints, very large, and also coloured, were arranged in convenient places on the walls. There were fox-hunting scenes, and German stag-hunts, together with a few quiet landscapes, that always recalled the dear old country now so far away.
The furniture was simple enough: two angarebs, or Arab stretchers, which, during the day, were covered with Persian carpets and served as sofas, while at night they were arranged as beds. The tables were made of square metal boxes piled one upon the other and covered with bright blue cloths. These were arranged with all kinds of odd trinkets of gaudy appearance, but of little value, which were intended to be asked for, and given away. Two native stools curiously cut out of a solid block formed our chairs. The guns and rifles stood in a row against a rack covered with red Turkey cloth; and a large Geneva musical box lay upon a table beneath the Princess of Wales.
Altogether the room was exceedingly pretty. It would have been vulgar if in England; but it was beautifully clean, and it shortly became the wonder of Central Africa.
I had brought the large gilt mirrors from England specially for M'tese, the king of Uganda, and for Kamrasi. I knew that if they were arranged in my own house, the news would be carried to M'tese immediately; and the fact of so great a curiosity and treasure being on the road to him would at once open a communication.
On 8th May, the prisoners of Suleiman's company, numbering twenty-five persons, came to the divan, headed by Ali Genninar, and supplicated forgiveness. They all declared their desire to be registered on the government books as irregular troops.