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The women are not regarded as property according to the Wanyamuezi practice, though many exchange their daughters; and some women, for misdemeanours, are sold into slavery; whilst others are flogged, or are degraded to do all the menial services of the house. The Wakungu then changed the subject by asking, if I married a black woman, would there be any offspring, and what would be their colour?
The Wanyamuezi, I was assured, were dying of starvation in all directions; for, in addition to the war, the last rainy season had been so light, all their crops had failed. 27th and 28th.
Reasoning thus, the Hindu traders alone, in those days, I believed, had a firm basis to stand upon, from their intercourse with the Abyssinians through whom they must have heard of the country of Amara, which they applied to the N'yanza and with the Wanyamuezi or men of the Moon, from whom they heard of the Tanganyika and Karague mountains.
A report reached me, by some of Sirboko's men, whom he had sent to convey to us a small present of rice, that an Arab, who was crossing Msalala to our northward, had been treacherously robbed of all his arms and guns by a small district chief, whose only excuse was that the Wanyamuezi had always traded very well by themselves until the Arabs came into the country; but now, as they were robbed of their property, on account of the disturbances caused by these Arabs, they intended for the future to take all they could get, and challenged the Arabs to do the same.
It was difficult to say who were of true breed here, for the intercourse of the natives with the Wahuma and the Wanyamuezi produced a great variety of facial features amongst the people. Nowhere did I ever see so many men and women with hazel eyes as at this place. In the evening, an Uganda man, by name N'yamgundu, came to pay his respects to us.
Wanyamuezi and Wanyoro, in addition to our own twenty men, carried the luggage, though no one carried more than the smallest article he could find. It was a pattern Unyoro march, of only two hours' duration. On arrival at the end we heard that elephants had been seen close by.
Wanyamuezi were lying about dead from starvation in all directions, and he did not think we should ever get through Usui, as Suwarora, the chief, was so extortionate he would "tear us to pieces"; but advised our waiting until the war was settled, when all the Arabs would combine and go with us.
Finally, we must wait two days, to see if Kamrasi would see us or not. Such was Unyoro diplomacy. An announcement of a different kind immediately followed. The king had heard that I gave a cow to Vittagura and Kidgwiga when they first came to me in Uganda, and wished the Wanyamuezi to ascertain if this was true.
I was rather pleased by this news, and thought it served the merchants right, knowing, as I well did, that the Wanyamuezi, being naturally honest, had they not been defrauded by foreigners on the down march to the coast, would have been honest still.
The greatest, however, that they could get up was, that I always paid the Wanyamuezi "temporaries" more than they got, though "permanents." "They were the flesh, and I was the knife"; I cut and did with them just as I liked, and they could not stand it any longer.
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