Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley

by William Henry Giles Kingston

execution by one of the body-guard, the poor creature shrieking out, as she went to premature death: “Oh, my lord, my king, my mother!” and yet no one dared to lift a hand to preserve her.

He made several sporting excursions with the king, who was always delighted when he shot a bird or an animal, jumping and leaping, and shouting: “Woh! woh! woh!” to express his delight. One of these was to the Lake Nyanza, after Speke had somewhat ingratiated himself with the sovereign. It was somewhat of a picnic party, and the king was accompanied as usual by a choice selection of his wives. Having crossed over to a woody island some distance from the shore, the party sat down to a repast, when large bowls of pomba were served out. They then took a walk among the trees, the ladies apparently enjoying themselves and picking fruit, till, unhappily, one of the most attractive of them plucked a fruit and offered it to the king, thinking, probably, to please him. He took it, however, as a dire offence, and, declaring that it was the first time a woman had had the audacity to offer him food, ordered the pages to lead her off to execution. No sooner had the words been uttered than the abominable little black imps rushed at her like a pack of beagles, slipping off their cord turbans and throwing the ropes round her limbs. She, indignant at being touched, remonstrated and attempted to beat them off, but was soon overcome and dragged away, crying out the names of “Kamraviona! Mzungu!” the title applied to Speke, for help and protection, while the other women clasped the king round the legs, imploring him to pardon their unhappy sister. His only reply was to belabour the miserable victim with a thick stick. Speke had carefully abstained heretofore from interfering with any of the king’s acts of arbitrary cruelty. On hearing, however, his own name imploringly pronounced, his English blood was up, and, rushing at the tyrant, he stayed his uplifted arm, and demanded the poor creature’s life. He, of course, ran a great risk of losing his own; but the novelty of the event seemed to tickle the capricious chief, and he at once ordered the woman to be released.

This was, however, one of the only occasions on which he was successful.

Day after day both men and women were led off to execution. On one occasion a poor girl had run away from the ill-treatment of her master, and had taken refuge in the house of a decrepit old man. The two were brought up for judgment, when the king sentenced them to death, and decreed that their lives should not be taken at once, but that they should be fed and dismembered, bit by bit, as rations for his vultures every day until life was extinct. The dismayed criminals, Speke says, struggling to be heard, were dragged away to the drowning music of horns and drums.

After he had been some time in the palace, he was introduced to the queen dowager. Her majesty was fat, fair, and forty-five. He found her seated in the front part of her hut, on a carpet, her elbow resting on a pillow. An iron rod, like a spit, with a cup on the top, charged with magic powder, and other magic wands were placed before the entrance, and within the room four Mabandwa sorceresses, or devil-drivers, fantastically dressed, with a mass of other women, formed the company. They being dismissed, a band of musicians came in, when pomba was drunk by the queen, and handed to her visitor and high officers and attendants. She smoked her pipe, and bid Speke to smoke his. She required doctoring, and Speke had many opportunities of seeing her, so completely winning her regard that she insisted on presenting him with various presents, among others a couple of wives, greatly to his annoyance. She appeared to be a jovial and intelligent personage. On another occasion Speke, when introduced, found her surrounded by her ministers, when a large wooden trough was brought in and filled with pomba. The queen put her head in and drank like a pig from it, her ministers following her example. If any was spilled by her, they dabbled their noses in the ground, or grabbed it up with their hands, that not a particle might be lost, as everything that comes from royalty must be adored. Musicians and dancers were then introduced, exhibiting their long, shaggy, goat-skin jackets, sometimes dancing upright, at others bending or striking the ground with their heels like hornpipe dancers.

The plaguy little imps of pages were constantly playing tricks, and seemed to delight in mischief.

One of the great officers of the court having offended the king, they came with a message to Speke’s attendants while he himself was away, ordering them all to attend the king with their arms. Instead of being led to the palace, they were guided to the house of the refractory officer, when they were ordered to rush in and spare nothing, men, women, children, mbugus, or cowries, all alike. Speke’s men, firing their guns, did as they were ordered. One of the inmates was speared, but the rest were taken, and brought in triumph to his camp. He, of course, ordered all the seizures to be at once given up to the king’s chief officer, and shut himself up in his house, declaring that he was ashamed to show his face. In vain the king sent to him to come and shoot. The reply was: “Bana” (the name by which the king called Speke) “is praying to-day that Mtesa may be forgiven the injury he has committed by sending his soldiers on such a duty; he is very angry about it, and wishes to know if it was done by the kings orders.” The boys replied that nothing could be done without the king’s orders. Speke also insisted on sending the red cloth cloaks worn by his men, because they had defiled their uniform when plundering women and children. He took this opportunity of teaching the barbarian a lesson.

On his next visit the king told him that he had wished to see him on the previous day, and begged that whenever he came he would fire a gun at the waiting hut, that he might hear of his arrival. The king was much pleased with a portrait Speke made of him, as also with his coloured sketches of several birds he had killed, but was still more delighted with some European clothes, with which he was presented. When Speke went to visit him, he found his Majesty dressed in his new garments. The legs of the trousers, as well as the sleeves of the waistcoat, were much too short, so that his black feet and hands stuck out at the extremities as an organ-player’s monkey’s do, while the cockscomb on his head prevented a fez cap, which he wore, from sitting properly. On this visit twenty new wives, daughters of chiefs, all smeared and shining with grease, were presented, marching in a line before the king, utterly destitute of clothes, whilst the happy fathers floundered, nynzigging, on the ground, delighted to find their darling daughters appreciated by the monarch. Speke burst into a fit of laughter, which was imitated not only by the king but by the pages, his own men chuckling in sudden gusto, though afraid of looking up.

The king at last returned Speke’s visit. Having taken off his turban, as Speke was accustomed to take off his hat, he seated himself on his stool. Everything that struck his eye was admired and begged for, though nothing seemed to please him so much as the traveller’s wide-awake and mosquito curtains. The women, who were allowed to peep into Sana’s den, received a couple of sacks of beads, to commemorate the visit.