s success;
there is great ceremony as well as business at these courts; you will
better see what I mean when you get to Uganda. These Wahuma kings are
not like those you ever saw in Unyamuezi or anywhere else; they have
officers and soldiers like Said Majid, the Sultan at Zanzibar." "Well,"
said I to Bombay, "what was Suwarora like?" "Oh, he is a very fine
man--just as tall, and in the face very like Grant; in fact, if Grant
were black you would not know the difference." "And were his officers
drunk too?" "O yes, they were all drunk together; men were bringing in
pombe all day." "And did you get drunk?" "O yes," said Bombay, grinning,
and showing his whole row of sharp-pointed teeth, "they WOULD make me
drink; and then they showed me the place they assigned for your camp
when you come over there. It was not in the palace, but outside, without
a tree near it; anything but a nice-looking residence." I then sent
Bombay to work at the hongo business; but, after haggling till night
with Kariwami, he was told he must bring fourteen brass wires, two
cloths, and five mukhnai of kanyera, or white porcelain beads--which,
reduced, amounted to three hundred necklaces; else he said I might stop
there for a month.

At last I settled this confounded hongo, by paying seven additional
wires in lieu of the cloth; and, delighted at the termination of this
tedious affair, I ordered a march. Like magic, however, Vikora turned
up, and said we must wait until he was settled with. His rank was the
same as the others, and one bead less than I had given them he would not
take. I fought all the day out, but the next morning, as he deputed his
officers to take nine wires, these were given, and then we went on with
the journey.

Tripping along over the hill, we descended to a deep miry watercourse,
full of bulrushes, then over another hill, from the heights of which we
saw Suwarora's palace, lying down in the Uthungu valley, behind which
again rose another hill of sandstone, faced on the top with a dyke of
white quartz. The scene was very striking, for the palace enclosures, of
great extent, were well laid out to give effect. Three circles of milk
bush, one within the other, formed the boma, or ring-fence. The chief's
hut (I do not think him worthy of the name of king, since the kingdom is
divided in two) was three times as large as any of the others, and stood
by itself at the farther end; whilst the smaller huts, containing his
officers and dom