m,
though many might be heard privately commenting on their beauty.

26th.--To-day, to amuse the king, I drew a picture of himself holding
a levee, and proceeded to visit him. On the way I found the highroad
thronged with cattle captured in Unyoro; and on arrival at the
ante-chamber, amongst the officers in waiting, Masimbi (Mr Cowries or
Shells), the queen's uncle, and Congow, a young general, who once led
an army into Unyoro, past Kamrasi's palace. They said they had obtained
leave for me to visit them, and were eagerly looking out for the happy
event. At once, on firing, I was admitted to the king's favourite place,
which, now that the king had a movable chair to sit upon, was the shade
of the court screen. We had a chat; the picture was shown to the women;
the king would like to have some more, and gave me leave to draw in the
palace any time I liked. At the same time he asked for my paint-box,
merely to look at it. Though I repeatedly dunned him for it, I could
never get it back from him until I was preparing to leave Uganda.

27th.--After breakfast I started on a visit to Congow; but finding he
had gone to the king as usual, called at Masimbi's and he being absent
also, I took advantage of my proximity to the queen's palace to call on
her majesty. For hours I was kept waiting; firstly, because she was
at breakfast; secondly, because she was "putting on medicine"; and,
thirdly, because the sun was too powerful for her complexion; when I
became tired of her nonsense, and said, "If she does not wish to see me,
she had better say so at once, else I shall walk away; for the last time
I came I saw her but for a minute, when she rudely turned her back upon
me, and left me sitting by myself." I was told not to be in a hurry--she
would see me in the evening. This promise might probably be fulfilled
six blessed hours from the time when it was made; but I thought to
myself, every place in Uganda is alike when there is no company at home,
and so I resolved to sit the time out, like Patience on a monument,
hoping something funny might turn up after all.

At last her majesty stumps out, squats behind my red blanket, which is
converted into a permanent screen, and says hastily, or rather testily,
"Can't Bana perceive the angry state of the weather?--clouds flying
about, and the wind blowing half a gale? Whenever that is the case, I
cannot venture out." Taking her lie without an answer, I said, I had now
been fifty days or so d