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She had been sent two years ago by the king, Kamrasi, from Unyoro, as a spy among the traders, with orders to attract them to the country if appearances were favourable, but to return with a report should they be dangerous people. "On her arrival at Faloro, Debono's people captured her, and she was eventually sold to her present owner. She speaks Arabic, having learnt it from the traders' people.
Debono's vakeel having made a razzia upon his frontier has so cowed him, that he has now left his residence, and retreated to the other side of a river, from which point he sends false messages to delay our advance as much as possible.
Several of the headmen now explained to us the atrocious treachery of Debono's men, who had been welcomed as friends of Speke and Grant, but who had repaid the hospitality by plundering and massacreing their hosts.
He sat upon a copper stool placed upon a carpet of leopard skins, and he was surrounded by about ten of his principal chiefs. Our interpreter, Bacheeta, now informed him who I was, and what were my intentions. He said that he was sorry I had been so long on the road, but that he had been obliged to be cautious, having been deceived by Debono's people.
"Guns firing in the distance; Debono's ivory porters arriving, for whom I have waited. My men rushed madly to my boat, with the report that two white men were with them who had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old England! they had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile springs .... The mystery of ages solved.
The chief, Werdella, was well experienced in the affairs of the Turks, as he had been for two or three years engaged with them in many razzias upon the adjoining tribes he had learnt to shoot while acting as their ally, and having received as presents two muskets, and two brace of pistols from Debono's nephew Amabile, he thought it advisable to supply himself with ammunition; he had therefore employed his people to steal a box of 500 cart ridges and a parcel containing 10,000 percussion caps from Mahommed's camp.
Several of the headmen now explained to us the atrocious treachery of Debono's men, who had been welcomed as friends of Speke and Grant, but who had repaid the hospitality by plundering and massacring their hosts.
He said that the king was really so great a man that he, his own brother, dared not sit on a stool in his presence, and that he had only kept in retirement as a matter of precaution, as Debono's people had allied themselves with his enemy Rionga in the preceding year, and he dreaded treachery.
Speke's party halted, when a black officer, Mahamed, in Egyptian regimentals, hastened from the head of his ragamuffin regiment, a mixture of Nubians, Egyptians, and slaves of all sorts, which he had ordered to halt, and, throwing himself into Speke's arms, began to hug and kiss him. Petherick was enquired for. "He is coming," was the answer. "What colours are those?" "Oh, they are Debono's."
This distressed him exceedingly; he said, that the "king was really so great a man that he, his own brother, dared not sit on a stool in his presence, and that he had only kept in retirement as a matter of precaution, as Debono's people had allied themselves with his enemy Rionga in the preceding year, and he dreaded treachery."
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