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Updated: June 4, 2025
He brought with him old Nasib and another man, and told me both Bui and Nasib had hidden themselves in a Boma close to Lumeresi's the day when my hongo was settled; but they bolted the instant the drums beat, and my men fired guns to celebrate the event, supposing that the noise was occasioned by our fighting with Lumeresi.
Lumeresi no sooner heard of the presents I had given them, than he flew into a passion, called them imposters, abused them for not speaking to him before they came to me, and said he would not allow them to go. High words then ensued. I said the business was mine, and not his; he had no right to interfere, and they should go.
In consequence of this, Lumeresi daily assembled his grey-beards and had councils of war in his drum-house; but though his subjects sent to him constantly for troops, he would not assist them. He, like the rest of the porters in the caravan, wore a shirt of fig-tree bark called mbugu.
The case was not examined at once, Lumeresi happening to be absent; so, to make good their time, the men in charge brought their beads to me to be exchanged for something else, not knowing that both camps were mine, and that they held my beads and not Grant's. Of course I took them from them, but did not give them a flogging, as I knew if I did so they would at once retaliate upon Grant.
Now, like a good man, just use your influence with the chief of the village, and try and get from him five or six men to complete the number we want, and then we will work round the east of Sorombo up to Usui, for Suwarora has invited us to him." This, however, was not so easy; for Lumeresi, having heard of my arrival, sent his Wanyapara, or grey-beards, to beg I would visit him.
This was startling, and induced me to send all the men I could prudently spare off to Grant at once, cautioning him to avoid Ruhe's, as Lumeresi had promised me he would not allow one other thing to be taken from me.
Bui really now was my only stand-by, so I sent him off, and next had the mortification to find that he had been humbugged by honeyed words, as Baraka had been with Makaka, into believing that Lumeresi was a good man, who really had no other desire at heart than the love of seeing me. His boma, he said, did not lie much out of my line, and he did not wish a stitch of my cloth.
To assist Grant, I begged Lumeresi to send him some aid in men at once; but he refused, on the plea that M'yonga was at war with him, and would kill them if they went. This was all the more provoking, as Grant, in a letter next evening, told me he could not get all his men together again, and wished to know what should be done.
Lumeresi, of course, was greatly perplexed at this, and sought my advice, but could get nothing out of me, for I laughed in my sleeve, and told him such was the consequence of his having been too greedy. 11th to 15th. Masudi with his caravan arrived from Mchimeka Ungurue "the Pig," who had led me astray, was, by the way, his kirangozi or caravan-leader.
To compensate for damage done to himself, as his daughter by this means had become reduced to half her market-value, Lumeresi seized all the cattle this man had brought with him. 3d to 10th. When two days had elapsed, one of the three missing Wahuma women was discovered in a village close by.
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