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Updated: June 3, 2025
Then, breaking up the court, he retired with a select party of Wakungu, headed by the Kamraviona, and opened a conversation on the subject which is ever uppermost with the king and his courtiers. 18th. To-day I visited Kaggao with my medicine-chest.
Reports came to-day of new cruelties at the palace. Kasoro improved on their off-hand manslaughter by saying that two Kamravionas and two Sakibobos, as well as all the old Wakungu of Sunna's time, had been executed by the orders of king Mtesa.
This we heard was a privilege that Uganda Wakungu enjoyed both at home and abroad, although in all other countries the sound of the drum is considered a notice of war, unless where it happens to accompany a dance or festival. Leaving the valley of Uthenga, we rose over the spur of N'yamwara, where we found we had attained the delightful altitude of 5000 odd feet.
In the meanwhile cows were driven in, which the king ordered his Wakungu to shoot with carbines; and as they missed them, he showed them the way to shoot with the Whitworth, never missing.
We went boating as usual all day long, sometimes after hippopotami, at others racing up and down the lake, the king and Wakungu paddling and steering by turns, the only break to this fatigue being when we went ashore to picnic, or the king took a turn at the drums.
Seizing-officers receive orders to hunt down Wakungu who have committed some indiscretions, and to confiscate their lands, wives, children, and property. An officer observed to salute informally is ordered for execution, when everybody near him rises in an instant, the drums beat, drowning his cries, and the victim of carelessness is dragged off, bound by cords, by a dozen men at once.
From this, we repaired to the great throne-hut, where all his Wakungu at once formed court, and business was commenced. Amongst other things, an officer, by name Mbogo, or the Buffalo, who had been sent on a wild-goose chase to look after Mr Petherick, described a journey he had made, following down the morning sun.
The Waganda were for a minute all spell-bound with astonishment, when the king jumped frantically in the air, clapping his hands above his head, and singing out, "Woh, woh, woh! what wonders! Oh, Bana, Bana! what miracles he performs!" and all the Wakungu followed in chorus.
I now obtained permission for the Wakungu to call upon me, and fancied I only required my interpreters to speak out like men when I had anything to say, to make my residence in Uganda both amusing and instructive; but though the king, carried off by the prevailing good-humour of the scene we had both witnessed, supported me, I found that he had counter-ordered what he had said as soon as I had gone, and, in fact, no Mkungu ever dared come near me.
These Wakungu, having only just then returned from plundering Unyoro, had never before seen their king in a chair, or anybody sitting, as I was, by his side; and it being foreign to their notions, as well as, perhaps, unpleasant to their feelings, to find a stranger sitting higher than themselves, they complained against this outrage to custom, and induced the king to order my dethronement.
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