Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley

by William Henry Giles Kingston

During the expedition, which Speke made with the king to the Nyanza, they landed on an island inhabited by a magician and his wife, who were supposed to be priests of of the water-spirit of the lake. His head was decorated with numerous mystic symbols, among them a paddle, the badge of his high office. He was dressed in a little, white, goat-skin apron, adorned by various charms, and, instead of a walking-stick to support his steps, he used a paddle. Though not an old man, he pretended to be so, walking slowly and deliberately, coughing and mumbling like one. Seating himself, he continued coughing for half an hour,

when his wife came in, much in the some manner, without saying a word, and assuming the same affected style.

The king, who was seated near the door, with his wives behind him, asked Speke what he thought of it. No voice was heard but that of the old wife, who croaked like a frog for some water, and when some was brought, croaked again because it was not the purest of the lake’s produce, and had the first cup changed, wetted her lips with the second, and hobbled away in the same manner as she had come.

The water-spirit’s chief priest now summoned several of the king’s officers to draw round him, and then, in a low voice, gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away. His revelations appeared to have been unpropitious, for the party immediately repaired to their boats and returned to their quarters.

During this excursion, the king went off on the lake, leaving Speke by himself on shore. He took the opportunity of visiting an hospitable old lady, who treated him and his attendants to the last drop of pomba in her house, smoking her pipe with him, and did not hesitate to speak of the horrors of the Uganda punishments. When his servant told her that he had saved the life of one of the women, she seemed astonished at the daring of the stranger and at the leniency of the monarch. The king’s servants had robbed her of nearly everything in her house.

The most barbarous orders of the despot are obeyed with the utmost alacrity by his officers, who would to a certainty, if they hesitated, be themselves put to death. His horrible little pages are his chief emissaries. At his command a dozen start off together, each striving to outrun the others, their dresses, streaming in the wind, giving them the resemblance at a distance of a flight of birds. On one occasion, Speke having given Mtesa a rifle, the king, after examining the weapon, loaded it and told a page to go out and shoot some

one, to ascertain if it would kill well. In a moment a report was heard, and the urchin came back grinning with delight at his achievement, just like a schoolboy who has shot his first sparrow. Nothing was heard about the unfortunate wretch who had served as a target, the murder of a man being by far too common an incident to attract notice.

Many of the people expressed the greatest horror of the king’s cruelty; but all his subjects were abject slaves, and no union existed among them which would have afforded them any hope in rebellion or in bringing about a better state of things.