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I drove him off in a huff, but he soon came back again with half the hongo I had paid to Kariwami, and said he must have some cloths or he would not have anything. As fortune decreed it, just then Sirhid dropped in, and stopped him importunity for the time by saying that if we had possessed cloths his men must have known it, for they had been travelling with us.
Sirhid then said he would ask Suwarora to grant us an interview as soon as possible; then, whilst leaving, he begged for the iron chair he had sat upon; but hearing we did not know how to sit on the ground, and therefore could not spare it, he withdrew without any more words about it.
No sooner, however, did Virembo turn tail than the Sirhid gave us a broad hint that he usually received a trifle from the Arabs before he made an attempt at arranging the hongo with Suwarora. Any trifle would do but he preferred cloth. This was rather perplexing.
Sirhid knew very well that I had a small reserve of pretty cloths, though all the common ones had been expended; so, to keep in good terms with him who was to be our intercessor, I said I would give him the last I had got if he would not tell Suwarora or any one else what I had done.
"Then can I not see him at once and pay my respects, for I have come a great way to obtain that pleasure?" "No," said Sirhid, "I will see him first; for he is not a man like myself, but requires to be well assured before he sees anybody." "Then why did he invite me here!"
Before, however, the hongo could be paid, I must give the Sirhid and himself twenty brass wires, three joho, three barsati, twenty strings of mzizima, and one thousand strings of white beads. They were given. Many of my men had by this time been married, notwithstanding my prohibition.
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