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Updated: May 27, 2025
At this time, the sultan, having changed tactics, as he saw us all ready to stand on the defensive, sent back his hongo; but, instead of using threats, said he would oblige us with donkeys or anything else if we would only give him a few more pretty cloths.
I answered that my footing in the country had been paid for on the last journey, and unless he would accept me as any other common traveller, he had better walk away; but the little Sheikh, a timid, though very gentlemanly creature, knowing the man, and dreading the consequences of too high a tone, pleaded for him, and proposed as a fitting hongo, one dubuani, one sahari, and eight yards merikani, as the American sheeting is called here.
In the evening Virembo and Karambule came to receive the hongo for their chief, demanding 60 wires, 160 yards merikani, 300 strings of mzizima, and 5000 strings of white beads; but they allowed themselves to be beaten down to 50 wires, 20 pretty cloths, 100 strings mzizima, and 4000 kutuamnazi, or cocoa-nut-leaf coloured beads, my white being all done.
Asudi, he said, had been there a fortnight unable to settle his hongo, for the great Mkama had not deigned to see him, though the Arab had been daily to his palace requesting an interview. "Well," I said, "that is all very interesting, but what next? will the big king see us?"
"'I hear that a white man is hunting in the Matuku country. This is to warn him to fly over the mountain to Nala. Wambe sends an impi at daybreak to eat him up, because he has hunted before bringing hongo. For God's sake, whoever you are, try to help me. I have been the slave of this devil Wambe for nearly seven years, and am beaten and tortured continually.
After an hour's waiting, the queen received us with smiles, and gave pombe and plantains to her new visitor, stating pointedly she had none for me. There was deep Uganda policy in this: it was for the purpose of treating Grant as a separate, independent person, and so obtaining a fresh hongo or tax.
The hongo, the sheikh said, had to precede everything; yet that had not been settled, because the chief deferred it the day of our arrival, on the plea that it was the anniversary of Short-legs's death; and he also said that till then all the Wagogo had been in mourning by ceasing to wear all their brass bracelets and other ornaments, and they now wished to solemnise the occasion by feasting and renewing their finery.
Baraka amused himself, as usual, for some hours, with firing off volleys of ammunition, and it was not till evening that the palace drums announced that the hongo had been settled, consisting of six yards of cloth, some beads, and other articles.
During the night, when sleeping profoundly, some person stealthily entered my hut and ran off with a box of bullets towards the palace, but on the way dropped his burden. Maula, on the way home, happening to see it, and knowing it to be mine, brought it back again. I stayed at home, not feeling well. 10th. K'yengo paid his hongo in wire to the king, and received a return of six cows.
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.
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