seemed almost, in a purely political point of view, to justify the Uganda custom of executing all the royal princes at the king's coronation. Three of them were in open_rebellion against him, and he was always very anxious to get the assistance of Speke's musketeers in fighting them. The king's sisters or half-sisters, instead of becoming wives of the king as in Uganda, were obliged in Unyoro to live and die in the palace in single blessedness. Their only occupation in life consisted in drinking milk. Each was said to consume daily the produce of from ten to twenty cows, so they became so fat that walking was out of the question, and it took eight men to lift one of them on her litter. The king's wives were in the same "prize-animal condition, milk being their oilcake and "Thorley's food for cattle." One of these, however, showed a little activity one day, and was convicted of stealing beads from a box which Speke had given Kamrasi. On the 13th of October the British officers were pained by receiving intelligence of the death of Budja. Whether he succumbed to the constant marchings and countermarchings that Mtésa's orders inflicted on him, or was poisoned in a pot of pombé-charmed to death, as the natives said they were not able to ascertain. At one of Speke's interviews with Kamrasi he took the Bible with him, to explain all about the king's Ethiopian descent in connection with the current traditions, especially calling his attention to the 14th chapter of the 2d Book of Chronicles, where Zerah the Ethiopian comes to fight King Asa with a thousand thousand men, adding how in later times the Ethiopians fought the Arabs in the Somali country, and the Arabs and Portuguese in Mombas, and how they took possession of certain districts, leaving their sons to people them. That the kings of Uganda retained so little of the Wahuma features now was owing PARTING WITH KAMRASI. 295 to the constant interbreeding through Waganda mothers. Kamrasi then took the Bible in his hand and began counting all the leaves, and, concluding that each page stood for one year of time since the creation, went on till he had turned over a quarter of the sacred volume, and only shut it on Speke's assuring him that it was all lost labour unless he counted the words. At the end of October one of Speke's men was sent with a letter to Rumanika to desire him to give half of the goods left behind to Kamrasi, and keep the other half for him; and with another letter for the consul at Zanzibar, by which the bearer and Baraka and Ulédi, who were now in Karagué, would be able to draw their pay when they got back. On the 1st of November Bombay, of whom vague reports had come at different times, returned with Mabruki in high glee, dressed in cotton jumpers and drawers given them by the party they had found. Petherick was not there himself, but a company of two hundred Turks or Egyptians, who had orders to wait for Speke. On his arrival Speke would find Petherick's name cut in a tree, but as none of the party could read Speke's letter, they were doubtful whether it came from the person they were looking out for. Petherick had gone down the river eight days' journey, but was soon expected back. Bombay had accomplished the distance to the station in Gani and back in fourteen days of actual travelling. The next day he was sent with Speke's farewell presents to Kamrasi, including a long-coveted mosquito curtain, with a request that he might be allowed to leave. After endless trouble, Kamrasi still wishing to get more out of them, and especially to receive their help against his brothers, that king of the beggars received them in stiff state, and let them go as coldly as he had welcomed them-they feeling 296 LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE. as glad to get away as birds released from a cage. However, he gave them ten cows at starting, and an escort of twenty-four Wanyoro, who were to bring back from Gani six carbines with ammunition promised by Speke. They wished to take with them some of his sons to be educated in England, but he said they were too small to leave home, and, in fact, mere balls of fat, and sent two orphan slave-boys instead, who, however, were not judged equally acceptable. On the 9th of November the expedition was embarked in a canoe on the river Kafu. Although it was intended. that they should be smuggled away, the banks were lined with crowds shouting and waving adieus, amongst whom was conspicuous a gaily-dressed maid of honour who had generally sat at the feet of the king, and was the only female of rank whose acquaintance they had made. The language of the Unyoro was observed to differ but slightly from that of Karagué. It had not the mumbling sounds of the Uganda dialect, in which the consonants d, g, k, and c are dropped in pronunciation. The Seedis understood it but little when they left, and found the language of the Chopi and Gani people beyond Unyoro quite unintelligible. They said it sounded like English, but that could not have been the case, as every word was uttered with a strange guttural croak. Many of the names of the men from the coast in Speke's service were heard in Unyoro. Kamrasi himself had a namesake, a corndealer at Pangani. This dispersion of names was in a measure owing to the slave-trade. Among the curiosities of Kamrasi's court was a dwarf named Kimenya, a little old man less than a yard high, who called on the British travellers with a walking-stick higher than himself, performed various antics, and begged for cowries. He was perfectly sensible, though very rest |