Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
Go back to your village, Idigi, telling all men that I sit here for a spell in the place of my lord Sandi, and if there be, not one king of N'bosini, but a score, and if he lead, not one army, but three and three and three, I will meet him with my soldiers and he shall go the way of the bad king."
"This day I go back to M'ilitani, carrying word of the N'bosini," said he, and Bosambo's jaw dropped, though Bones did not notice the fact. "Presently I will return, bringing with me silver of the value of a hundred English pounds, and you shall lead us to this strange city."
He stopped at villages and held palavers on this question of N'bosini and acquired a whole mass of conflicting information. If you smile at Bones, you smile at the glorious spirit of enterprise which has created Empire. Out of such dreams as ran criss-cross through the mind of Lieutenant Tibbetts there have arisen nationalities undreamt of and Empires Caesar never knew.
"This I know of N'bosini," said the sergeant, "that all men along this river believe in it; all save Bosambo of the Ochori who, as is well known, believes in nothing, since he is a follower of the Prophet and the one God." Mahomet Ali salaamed devoutly.
Even Sandi, who has wisdom greater than ju-ju, he says that there is no N'bosini, but that it is the foolish talk of men who cannot see whence come their troubles and must find a land and a people and a king out of their mad heads.
"Is it a large city?" he asked suddenly. "Larger than the whole of the Ochori," answered Bosambo impressively. "And tell me this, Bosambo, what manner of houses are these which stand in the city of the N'bosini?" "Larger than kings' huts," said Bosambo. "Of stone?" "Lord, of rock, so that they are like mountains," replied Bosambo. Bones shut his book and got up.
Now one thing is certain, that Bones, in pursuing his inquiries about N'bosini, was really doing a most useful piece of work. The palavers he called had a deeper significance to the men who attended them than purely geographical inquiries.
Did not all previous experience go to the support of the theory that N'bosini had some existence? In other words that, planted in the secret heart of some forest in the territory, barred from communication with the world by swift rivers of the high tangle of forests, there was, in being, a secret tribe of which only rumours had been heard a tribe of white men, perhaps!
Having no power to remit taxes, but having most explicit instructions from his chief, which admitted of no compromise, it was an easy matter for Bones to shake his head and say in English: "Nothin' doing"; a phrase which, afterwards, passed into the vocabulary of the Ochori as the equivalent of denial of privilege. It was on the second day that Bones broached the question of the N'bosini.
"O, laughing Lord," said Idigi, almost humble in his awe for blue eyes in a brown face are a great sign of devilry, "this is no smiling palaver, for they say " "Idigi," interrupted Hamilton, "I smile when you speak of the N'bosini, because there is no such land.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking