e
to call upon anybody but the king himself. I had not been able to send
presents or bribes to any one, nor had any one, except the cockaded
pages, by the king's order, visited me; neither was anybody permitted
to sell me provisions, so that my men had to feed themselves by taking
anything they chose from certain gardens pointed out by the king's
officers, or by seizing pombe or plantains which they might find Waganda
carrying towards the palace. This non-interventive order was part of the
royal policy, in order that the king might have the full fleecing of his
visitors.

To call upon the queen-mother respectfully, as it was the opening visit,
I too, besides the medicine-chest, a present of eight brass and copper
wire, thirty blue-egg beads, one bundle of diminutive beads, and sixteen
cubits of chintz, a small guard, and my throne of royal grass. The
palace to be visited lay half a mile beyond the king's, but the highroad
to it was forbidden me, as it is considered uncourteous to pass the
king's gate without going in. So after winding through back-gardens, the
slums of Bandowaroga, I struck upon the highroad close to her majesty's,
where everything looked like the royal palace on a miniature scale. A
large cleared space divided the queen's residence from her Kamraviona's.
The outer enclosures and courts were fenced with tiger-grass; and the
huts, though neither so numerous nor so large, were constructed after
the same fashion as the king's. Guards also kept the doors, on which
large bells were hung to give alarm, and officers in waiting watched
the throne-rooms. All the huts were full of women, save those kept as
waiting-rooms; where drums and harmonicons were played for amusement. On
first entering, I was required to sit in a waiting-hut till my arrival
was announced; but that did not take long, as the queen was prepared to
receive me; and being of a more affable disposition than her son, she
held rather a levee of amusement than a stiff court of show. I entered
the throne-hut as the gate of that court was thrown open, with my hat
off, but umbrella held over my head, and walked straight towards her
till ordered to sit upon my bundle of grass.

Her majesty--fat, fair, and forty-five--was sitting, plainly garbed in
mbugu, upon a carpet spread upon the ground within a curtain of mbugu,
her elbow resting on a pillow of the same bark material; the only
ornaments on her person being an abrus necklace, and a piece of mbugu