and to add to these troubles,
Ilmas's woman had tried during my absence to hang herself, because she
would not serve as servant but wished to be my wife; and Bombay's wife,
after taking a doze of quinine, was delivered of a still-born child.

1st.--I visited the king, at his request, with the medicine-chest. He
had caught a cold. He showed me several of his women grievously affected
with boils, and expected me to cure them at once. I then went home,
and found twenty men who had passed Grant, coming on a stretcher from
Karague, without any of the rear property. Meri, still persistent,
rejected strengthening medicines, but said, in a confidential manner, if
I would give her a goat to sacrifice to the Uganga she would recover in
no time. There was something in her manner when she said this that I did
not like--it looked suspicious; and I contented myself by saying, "No,
I am a wiser doctor than any in these lands; if anybody could cure you,
that person is myself: and further, if I gave you a goat to sacrifice,
God would be angry with both of us for our superstitious credulity; you
must therefore say no more about it."

2d.--The whole country around the palace was in a state of commotion
to-day, from Maula and his children hunting down those officers who had
returned from the war, yet had not paid their respects to the king at
the N'yanza, because they thought they would not be justified in calling
on him so quickly after their arrival. Maula's house, in consequence of
this, was full of beef and pombe; whilst, in his courtyard, men, women,
and children, with feet in stocks, very like the old parish stocks in
England, waited his pleasure, to see what demands he would make upon
them as the price of their release. After anxiously watching, I found
out that Meri was angry with me for not allowing Ilmas's woman to
live in my house; and, to conquer my resolution against it--although I
ordered it with a view to please Ilmas, for he was desperately in love
with her--she made herself sick by putting her finger down her throat. I
scolded her for her obstinacy. She said she was ill--it was not feigned;
and if I would give her a goat to sacrifice she would be well at once;
for she had looked into the magic horn already, and discovered that if
I have her a goat for that purpose it would prove that I loved her,
and her health would be restored to her at once. Hallo! Here was a
transformation from the paternal position into that of a henp