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Updated: June 15, 2025
But when Grant came, we had it out of him, and found this terrible mystery all hung on Lumeresi's prognostications that we never should get through Usui with so little cloth. 16th to 19th. At night, I had such a terrible air-catching fit, and made such a noise whilst trying to fill my lungs, that it alarmed all the camp, so much so that my men rushed into my tent to see if I was dying.
To reach it they had first to pass through the province of Usui, the chief of which, Suwarora, pillaged them as usual. Here the little grass-hut villages were not fenced by a boma, but were hidden in large fields of plantains. Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma, who would not sell their milk, because the Englishmen eat fowls. Their camp, night after night, was attacked by thieves.
It overlooks the small district of Sorombo, belonging to the great western division, known as Usui, and is presided over by a Sorombo chief, named Makaka, whose extortions had been so notorious that no Arabs now ever went near him. I did not wish to do so either, though his palace lay in the direct route.
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.
On crossing Usui, he once had a fight with one of the chiefs of the country and killed him; but he got through all right, because the natives, after two or three of their number had been killed, dispersed, and feared to come near his musket again.
Speke, having successfully endeavoured to negotiate a peace between the chief Mouwa and the Arabs of the region, resolved upon the bold enterprise of pushing on without Grant and the supplies towards Buzina, the nearest country ruled by Bahima chiefs. The venture, however, was a fruitless one, and he bravely struggled to reach Usui.
Everybody advised me to stop where I was until the harvest was over, as no porters could be found on ahead, for Ukuni was the last of the fertile lands on this side of Usui.
3d. These two slaves, both of whom knew all the chiefs and languages up to and including Uganda, promised me faithfully they would go with Bombay on to Usui, and bring back porters in sufficient number for Grant and myself to go on together.
On arriving in camp we pitched under some trees, and at once were greeted by an officer sent by Rumanika to help us out of Usui. This was Kachuchu, an old friend of Nasib's, who no sooner saw him than, beaming with delight, he said to us, "Now, was I not right when I told you the birds flying about on Lohugati hill were a good omen?
They would therefore not rest satisfied until they had reduced Khoko and Usekhe both, by actual force, to acknowledge their superiority, "feeding on them" until the Ramazan, when they would return with all the merchants detained in Ugogo, and, again combining their forces, they would fall on Usui, to reduce that country also. When these men had gone, a lunatic set the whole place in commotion.
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