The shell was now passed to Tom and Karema’s sponsor, who each took a drink, and the fetichman then finished off the remainder. The two buffalo horns were now taken up from the ground and filled up with mud. The one that had been between my legs was given to Karema, and his was given to me. We were led to the entrance to our enclosures, where the horns were hung up in order to keep all evil spirits and wicked men from injuring us; then returning once more to the middle of the village, the fetichman proclaimed in a stentorian voice that Franki was brother of Karema. This he did four times, first facing north, then south, then east, and lastly west.
Each time as he called out the people shouted, “Eh-a-a-a-n, Eh-a-a-a-n! Franki Karema, Karema Franki!” and drums, bells, horns, and whistles were brought into requisition to increase the noise.
The ceremony was now finished, and I was one of the Adiana, as Karema’s people were called. From all in the village came presents, mostly small, such as a leaf of tobacco or an egg, a fowl or something of that sort; but from Karema came three women and three men carrying earthen pots, mats, hoes, stools, calabashes, and driving half-a-dozen goats. These people, as well as what they brought me, Tom told me, were now my property, and would have to cultivate my farm for me and do all the work that I required. One of the women, who was young and good-looking, he advised me to take for a wife.
I again told him that it was impossible, and at last he ceased to urge me to marry, saying, “Bery good. Me no sabey white man palaver; black man s’pose he get slave what be good he marry him one time.”
My new hut soon began to look habitable, and by Karema’s orders all the people of the village brought in poles and thatch and strips of bark to tie the frames together. Before evening huts were nearly finished to shelter my servants—for I would not call them slaves—and my live stock.
Next day these were finished, and with Karema I went out of the village and chose a piece of ground which was to be cultivated for me, and for which he gave me seed. Tom stopped this day with me, and advised me to make presents, out of the goods his father had supplied me with, to all the principal men among my new countrymen, not forgetting the fetichman who had performed the ceremony of exchanging blood between Karema and me. Next day he left to go back to Jack Sprat’s village, and after bidding me good-bye most warmly, he got into the canoe which had brought us up and paddled away down-stream.
As he left, a sense of great loneliness came over me, for though I and Karema were brothers, I could not exchange a word with him, and how long it would be necessary for me to remain where I was I did not know. However, I consoled myself by thinking that I might have been in a much worse plight, and set myself to make the best of my present situation.
I soon found that I was able to pick up sufficient of the native language to make myself understood. I found employment to fill up my days in looking after my servants and farm, in hunting and shooting, and in learning the use of spear and bow, and how to manage a canoe, in all of which I became very expert. I found that the natives, after their first superstitious reverence for a white man had worn off, began to treat me as if I was not so good as themselves. When, however, they saw that I could surpass them at their own callings; that I was always to the front in hunting the wild cattle which abounded in the neighbouring woods, or in the more exciting and dangerous pastime of spearing hippopotami from our canoes; that no man’s spear was hurled further or with truer aim; and that my arrows pierced deeper in the bodies of our prey than those of any of my companions—they looked upon me as one of their leading warriors, and openly spoke of me as the successor of Karema.
Among the whole tribe I could count only a few enemies, and these were a younger brother of Karema, named Dala—who before I came had expected to be his heir—and his special friends. I often tried to explain to Dala that it was impossible I should become the chief of the Adiana, as my intention was, as soon as ever I heard of the arrival of an English ship in the river, to make my way on board and return to my own country. Though Dala was forced to own the truth of what I said, he was so blinded with jealousy that he continued to try to do me harm. My plantations were often damaged, my fowls stolen, and my goats killed.
Karema loyally fulfilled all the obligations of brotherhood to me, and always made good my losses. The only actual annoyance they caused me was in proving that, notwithstanding anything I might do, Dala was my persistent enemy.