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We were on deck at the time, and the headman of my wood-cutters, lounging near by, turned upon him his heavy and glittering eyes. I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness.
The Makololo headman, Mokompa, brought us a liberal present; and in the usual way, which is considered politeness, regretted he had no milk, as his cows were all dry. We got some honey here from the very small stingless bee, called, by the Batoka, moandi, and by others, the kokomatsane. This honey is slightly acid, and has an aromatic flavour.
His bonga father-in-law was so angry with him for having caused the death of the tiger, that he made his daughter take her husband back to the upper world again. In spite of all he had seen the young man did not give up his bonga wife and every two or three months she used to spirit him away under the water: and now that man is a jan guru. CXLIX. The Bonga Headman.
M'Barak, wise man, remained by the side of a little pool born of the winter rains; he had tethered his horse and was sleeping patiently in the shadow cast by this long-suffering animal. The headman, who had seen my sporting guns, introduced himself by sending a polite message to beg that none of the birds that fluttered or brooded by the shrine might be shot, for that they were all sacred.
There was no great chief at Shooa; each village had a separate headman; formerly the population had occupied the lower ground, but since the Turks had been established at Faloro and had plundered the neighbouring tribes, the natives had forsaken their villages and had located themselves among the mountains for security.
The headman replied that he felt sure I was not an impostor; but that very shortly after the departure of Speke and Grant in the previous year, a number of people had arrived in their name, introducing themselves as their greatest friends: they had been ferried across the river, and well received by Kamrasi's orders, and had been presented with ivory, slaves, and leopard skins, as tokens of friendship; but they had departed, and suddenly returned with Rionga's people, and had attacked the village in which they had been so well received; and upon the country being assembled to resist them, about three hundred of Kamrasi's men had been killed in the fight.
All attempts of the headman and elders to restrain him were useless. He became quarrelsome, and went on from one thing to another, until at last he was suspected of being concerned in a crime. So then when all means had failed to restore her husband to her, when they had drifted far apart and there was nothing before them but trouble, she went to the elders of the village and demanded a divorce.
So it was that while Rajah Muda Saffir moved leisurely up the river toward his distant stronghold waiting for the other boats of his fleet to overtake him, Barunda, the headman, guided the white enemy swiftly after him. Barunda had discovered that it was the girl alone this white man wanted.
Then the headman consulted the villagers and they decided that there was nothing to be done but to throw away the body, and that as the Prince was also a traveller he should do it.
At Charra we had a violent quarrel with the headman of the bearers we had hired to go as far as this, and who now wished to extort large extra payment from us. In the result he threatened to set the Masai about whom more anon on to us. That night he, with all our hired bearers, ran away, stealing most of the goods which had been entrusted to them to carry.
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