umb signs to carry the fair ones pick-a-back over, and after crossing a
second myself by a floating log, offered my hand. The leading wife first
fears to take it, then grows bold and accepts it; when the prime beauty,
Lubuga, following in her wake, and anxious to feel, I fancy, what the
white man is like, with an imploring face holds out both her hands in
such a captivating manner, that though I feared to draw attention by
waiting any longer, I could not resist compliance. The king noticed it;
but instead of upbraiding me, passed it off as a joke, and running up to
the Kamraviona, gave him a poke in the ribs, and whispered what he had
seen, as if it had been a secret. "Woh, woh!" says the Kamraviona, "what
wonders will happen next?"

We were now on the buffalo ground; but nothing could be seen save some
old footprints of buffaloes, and a pitfall made for catching them. By
this time the king was tired; and as he saw me searching for a log to
sit upon, he made one of his pages kneel upon all fours and sat upon his
back, acting the monkey in aping myself; for otherwise he would have sat
on a mbugu, in his customary manner, spread on the ground. We returned,
pushing along, up one way, then another, without a word, in thorough
confusion, for the king delights in boyish tricks, which he has learned
to play successfully. Leaving the road and plunging into thickets of
tall grass, the band and Wakungu must run for their lives, to maintain
the order of march, by heading him at some distant point of exit from
the jungle; whilst the Kamraviona, leading the pages and my men, must
push head first, like a herd of buffaloes, through the sharp-cutting
grass, at a sufficient rate to prevent the royal walk from being
impeded; and the poor women, ready to sink with exhaustion, can only be
kept in their places by fear of losing their lives.

We had been out the whole day; still he did not tire of these tricks,
and played them incessantly till near sundown, when we entered the
palace. Then the women and Wakungu separating from us, we--that is, the
king, the Kamraviona, pages, and myself--sat down to a warm feast of
sweet potatoes and plantains, ending with pombe and fruit, whilst
moist circular napkins, made in the shape of magnificent wafers out of
plantain fibre, acted at once both the part of water and towel. This
over, as the guns had to be emptied, and it was thought sinful to waste
the bullets, four cows were ordered in and shot by the