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As the presents given yesterday occupied the king's mind too much for other business, I now sent to offer him one-third of the guns left in Uganda, provided he would send some messengers with one of my men to ask Mtesa for them, and also the same proportion of the sixty loads of property left in charge of Rumanika at Karague, if he would send the requisite number of porters for its removal.
The watch being by this time repaired, it gave me the opportunity of sending Kidgwiga back to the palace to say we trusted Kamrasi would allow Budja to come here, if only with one woman to carry his pombe, else Mtesa would take offence, form an alliance with Rionga, and surround the place with warriors, for it was not becoming in great kings to treat civil messengers like dogs.
He laughed, but still was silent; so I said, "What message have you brought from Mtesa?" To which, in a timid, modest kind of manner, he said, "Bana knows what more need I say? Has he forgotten Mtesa, who loves him so?"
He was the brother of the dowager queen of Uganda, and, along with a proper body of officers, he had been sent by Mtesa, the present king of Uganda, to demand the daughter of Suwarora, as reports had reached his king that she was surprisingly beautiful.
This expression of becoming wrath brought every one to a sense of his duty; and I then told them all I was excessively angry with Mtesa for turning back my messenger; nobody had ever dared do such a thing before, and I would never forgive the king until my medicines had been given to the queen.
He told us, moreover, that if Mtesa ever has a dream that his father directs him to kill anybody as being dangerous to his person, the order is religiously kept.
Stanley stated that King Mtesa was ready and willing to receive Christian teachers, if any were prepared to go out to his kingdom of Uganda. The result of that letter was, that in a few days no less than £14,000 was sent to the Church Missionary Society, in order that they might have the means to establish a mission by the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.
In the midst of this assembly I now found Kachuchu, Rumanika's representative, who went on ahead from Karague palace to tell Mtesa that I wished to see him. With him, he said, were two other Wakungu of Mtesa's, who had orders to bring on my party and Dr K'yengo's.
Kidgwiga informed us that Kamrasi never retaliated on Mtesa when he lifted Unyoro cows, though the Waganda keep their cattle on the border which simply meant that he had not the power of doing so.
I then gave him a book on "Kafir laws," which he said he would keep for my sake, with all the rest of the presents, which he was determined never to give away, though it was usual for him to send novelties of this sort to Mtesa, king of Uganda, and Kamrasi, king of Unyoro, as a friendly recognition of their superior positions in the world of great monarchies. 17th.
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