The people laughed, and mocked me. Then he said that it was an egg,
which was very true.
Another question he gave me was, "What is it that looks both ways when
you pass it?"
Some said one thing, and some said another, and at last he answered that
it was grass.
Then he asked me, "What good thing was it which a man eats, and which he
constantly fastens his eyes upon while he eats, and after eating, throws
a half away?" I thought and considered, but I never knew what it was
until he told me that it was a roasted ear of Indian corn.
That old man was a very wise one, and among some of his sayings was that
"When people dream much, the old moon must be dying."
He also said that "When the old moon is dying, the hunter need never
leave home to seek game, because it is well known that he would meet
nothing."
And he further added, that at that time the potter need not try to bake
any pots, because the clay would be sure to be rotten.
Some other things which he said made me think a little of their meaning.
He said, "When people have provisions in their huts, they do not say,
Let us go into another man's house and rob him."
He also said, "When you see a crook-back, you do not ask him to stand
straight, nor an old man to join the dance, nor the man who is in pain,
to laugh."
And what he said about the traveller is very true. The man who clings
to his own hearth does not tickle our ears, like him who sees many
lands, and hears new stories.
The next day I stopped at a village near the little lake of Kitesa's
called Mtukura. The chief in charge loved talking so much, that he soon
made me as well acquainted with the affairs of his family as though he
courted my sister. His people are accustomed to eat frogs and rats, and
from the noise in the reeds, and the rustling and squealings in the roof
of the hut I slept in, I think there is little fear of famine in that
village. Nor are they averse, they tell me, to iguanas and those vile
feeders, the hyenas.
It is a common belief in the country that it was Naraki, a wife of Uni,
a sultan of Unyoro, who made that lake. While passing through, she was
very thirsty, and cried out to her Muzimu (spirit), the Muzimu which
attends the kings of Unyoro, and which is most potent. And all at once
there was a hissing flight of firestones (meteorites) in the air, and
immediately after, there was a fall of a monstrously large one, which
struck the ground close to her, and made a great hole, out of which the
water spurted and continued leaping up until a lake was formed, and
buried the fountain out of sight, and the rising waters formed a river,
which has run north from the lake ever since into the Kafu.
Close by this lake is a dark grove, sacred to Muzingeh, the king of the
birds. It is said that he has only one eye, but once a year he visits
the grove, and after building his house, he commands all the birds from
the Nyanzas and the groves, to come and see him and pay their homage.
For half a moon the birds, great and small, may be seen following him
about along the shores of the lake, like so many guards around a king;
and before night they are seen returning in the same manner to the
grove. The parrots' cries tell the natives when they come, and no one
would care to miss the sight, and the glad excitement among the
feathered tribe. But there is one bird, called the Kirurumu, that
refuses to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Muzingeh. The other birds
have tried often to induce him to associate with the Muzingeh; but
Kirurumu always answers that a beautiful creature like himself, with
gold and blue feathers, and such a pretty crest, was never meant to be
seen in the company of an ugly bird that possesses only one eye.
On the other side of Lake Mtukura is a forest where Dungu, the king of
the animals, lives. It is to Dungu that all the hunters pray when they
set out to seek for game. He builds first a small hut, and after
propitiating him with a small piece of flesh, he asks Dungu that he may
be successful. Then Dungu enters into the hunter's head, if he is
pleased with the offering, and the cunning of the man becomes great; his
nerves stiffen, and his bowels are strengthened, and the game is
secured. When Dungu wishes a man to succeed in the hunt, it is useless
for the buffalo to spurn the earth and moo, or for the leopard to cover
himself with sand in his rage--the spear of the hunter drinks his blood.
But the hunter must not forget to pay the tribute to the deity, lest he
be killed on the way home.
The friendly chief insisted that I should become his blood-fellow, and
stay with him a couple of days. The witch-doctor, a man of great
influence in the country, was asked to unite us. He took a sharp little
knife, and made a gash in the skin of my right leg, just above the knee,
and did the same to the chief, and then rubbed his blood over my wound,
and my blood over his, and we became brothers. Among his gifts was this
beautiful shield, which I beg Mtesa, my Kabaka, to accept, because I
have seen none so beautiful, and it is too good for a colonel whose only
hope and wish is to serve his king.
I am glad that I rested there, because I saw a most wonderful sight
towards evening. As we were seated under the bananas, we heard a big
he-goat's bleat, and by the sound of it we knew that it was neither for
fun nor for love. It was a tone of anger and fear. Almost at the same
time, one of the boys rushed up to us, and his face had really turned
grey from fear, and he cried, "There is a lion in the goat-pen, and the
big he-goat is fighting with him." They had forgotten to tell me about
this famous goat, which was called Kasuju, after some great man who had
been renowned in war, and he certainly was worth speaking about, and
Kasuju was well known round about for his wonderful strength and
fighting qualities. When we got near the pen with our spears and
shields, the he-goat was butting the lion--who was young, for he had no
mane--as he might have butted a pert young nanny-goat, and baaing with
as full a note as that of a buffalo calf. It appears that Kasuju saw
the destroyer creeping towards one of his wives, and dashing at his
flank knocked him down. As we looked on from the outside, we saw that
Kasuju was holding his own very well, and we thought that we would not
check the fight, but prepare ourselves to have a good cast at the lion
as he attempted to leave. The lion was getting roused up, and we saw
the spring he made: but Kasuju nimbly stepped aside and gave him such a
stroke that it sounded like a drum. Then Kasuju trotted away in front
of his trembling wives, and as the lion came up, we watched him draw his
ears back as he raised himself on his hind feet like a warrior. The
lion advanced to him, and he likewise rose as though he would wrestle
with him, when Kasuju shot into his throat with so true and fair a
stroke, that drove one of his horns deep into the throat. It was then
the lion's claws began to work, and with every scratch poor Kasuju's
hide was torn dreadfully, but he kept his horn in the wound, and pushed
home, and made the wound large. Then the lion sprang free, and the
blood spurted all over Kasuju. Blinded with his torn and hanging scalp,
and weakened with his wounds, he staggered about, pounding blindly at
his enemy, until the lion gave him one mighty stroke with its paw, and
sent him headlong, and then seized him by the neck and shook him, and we
heard the cruel crunch as the fangs met. But it was the last effort of
the lion, for just as Kasuju was lifeless, the lion rolled over him,
dead also. Had my friend told me this story, I should not have believed
him, but as I saw it with my own eyes, I am bound to believe it. We
buried Kasuju honourably in a grave, as we would bury a brave man; but
the lion we skinned, and I have got his fur with the ragged hole in the
throat.
The singular fight we had witnessed, furnished us all with much matter
for talk about lions, and it brought into the mind of one of them a
story of a crocodile and lion fight which had happened some time before
in the night. Lake Mtukura swarms with crocodiles, and situated as it
is in a region of game they must be fat with prey. One night a
full-grown lion with a fine mane came to cool his dry throat in the
lake, and was quaffing water, when he felt his nose seized by something
that rose up from below.
From the traces of the struggle by the water's edge, it must have been a
terrible one. The crocodile's long claws had left deep marks, showing
how he must have been lifted out of the water, and flung forcibly down;
but in the morning both lion and crocodile were found dead, the
crocodile's throat wide open with a broad gash, but his teeth still
fastened in the lion's nose.
Saruti had not half finished his stories when he felt, by seeing Mtesa
yawn, that though his adventures were very interesting, and he was quite
ready to continue, yet it would be to his advantage to dock his tongue
for the time being. So he said, "Kabaka, the wise old man whom I met,
told me one thing I had nearly forgotten to say. He said, `I know you
are a servant of the king, and if ever you want the king's face to
soften to you and his hand to open with gifts, compare yourself to the
lid of a cooking-pot, which, though the pot may be full of fragrant
stew, receives naught but the vapour, and the king who is wise will
understand and will be pleased with his servant.'"
"Very well said indeed, Saruti," cried Mtesa, laughing. "I understand.
The lid must share with the pot this time. Steward," he said, turning
to Kauta, "see that six head of cattle be driven to Saruti's
cattle-pen;" and Saruti twiyanzied (thanked with prostrations) so often
that his head swam.