never enjoy the benefit of his
position as successor to the crown of Karague, that he took some magic
powders and charmed away his life. His remains were then taken to
Moga-Namirinzi, in the same manner as were those of Dagara; but, as an
improvement on the maggot story, a young lion emerged from the heart of
the corpse and kept guard over the hill, from whom other lions came into
existence, until the whole place has become infested by them, and has
since made Karague a power and dread to all other nations; for these
lions became subject to the will of Dagara, who, when attacked by
the countries to the northward, instead of assembling an army of men,
assembled his lion force, and so swept all before him.

Another test was then advanced at the instigation of K'yengo, who
thought Rumanika not quite impressive enough of his right to the throne;
and this was, that each heir in succession, even after the drum dodge,
was required to sit on the ground in a certain place of the country,
where, if he had courage to plant himself, the land would gradually rise
up, telescope fashion, until it reached the skies, when, if the aspirant
was considered by the spirits the proper person to inherit Karague,
he would gradually be lowered again without any harm happening; but,
otherwise, the elastic hill would suddenly collapse, and he would be
dashed to pieces. Now, Rumanika, by his own confession, had gone
through this ordeal with marked success; so I asked him if he found the
atmosphere cold when so far up aloft, and as he said he did so, laughing
at the quaintness of the question, I told him I saw he had learnt a good
practical lesson on the structure of the universe, which I wished he
would explain to me. In a state of perplexity, K'yengo and the rest, on
seeing me laughing, thought something was wrong; so, turning about, they
thought again, and said, "No, it must have been hot, because the higher
one ascended the nearer he got to the sun."

This led on to one argument after another, on geology, geography, and
all the natural sciences, and ended by Rumanika showing me an iron much
the shape and size of a carrot. This he said was found by one of his
villagers whilst tilling the ground, buried some way down below the
surface; but dig as he would, he could not remove it, and therefore
called some men to his help. Still the whole of them united could not
lift the iron, which induced them, considering there must be some magic
in it, to inf