sad voice of no less than four women, dragged from the palace to the
slaughter-house.

19th.--To follow up our success in the marching question and keep the
king to his promise, I called at his palace, but found he had gone out
shooting. To push my object further, I then marched off to the queen's
to bid her good-bye, as if we were certain to leave the next day; but as
no one would dare to approach her cabinet to apprise her of our arrival,
we returned home tired and annoyed.

20th.--The king sent for us at noon; but when we reached the palace we
found he had started on a shooting tour; so, to make the best of our
time, we called again upon the queen for the same purpose as yesterday,
as also to get my books of birds and animals, which, taken merely
to look at for a day or so, had been kept for months. After hours of
waiting, her majesty appeared standing in an open gateway; beckoned us
to advance, and offered pombe; then, as two or three drops of rain fell,
she said she could not stand the violence of the weather, and forthwith
retired without one word being obtained. An officer, however, venturing
in for the books, at length I got them.

21st.--To-day I went to the palace, but found no one; the king was out
shooting again.

22d.--We resolved to-day to try on a new political influence at the
court. Grant had taken to the court of Karague a jumping-jack, to amuse
the young princes; but it had a higher destiny, for it so fascinated the
king Rumanika himself that he would not part with it--unless, indeed,
Grant would make him a big one out of a tree which was handed to him
for the purpose. We resolved to try the influence of such a toy on king
Mtesa, and brought with us, in addition, a mask and some pictures. But
although the king took a visiting card, the gate was never opened to us.
Finding this, and the day closing, we deposited the mask and pictures on
a throne, and walked away. We found that we had thus committed a serious
breach of state etiquette; for the guard, as soon as they saw what we
had done, seized the Wanguana for our offences in defiling the royal
seat, and would have bound them, had they not offered to return the
articles to us.

23d.--Early in the morning, hearing the royal procession marching off on
a shooting excursion, we sent Bombay running after it with the mask and
pictures, to aquaint the king with our desire to see him, and explain
that we had been four days successively foiled in attempts