Albert, Lake (Congo and Uganda); Nile River; Sudan -- Description and travel
"Never mind," he replied, "it's all over now. You really are thin, both
of you. It was your own fault; why did you not agree to fight Fowooka?
You should have been supplied with fat cows and milk and butter, had you
behaved well. I will have my men ready to attack Fowooka to-morrow.
The Turks have ten men, you have thirteen; thirteen and ten make
twenty-three. You shall be carried if you can't walk, and we will give
Fowooka no chance. He must be killed--only kill him, and MY BROTHER will
give you half of his kingdom."
He continued, "You shall have supplies to-morrow; I will go to my
BROTHER, who is the great M'Kamma Kamrasi, and he will send you all
you require. I am a little man; he is a big one. I have nothing; he has
everything, and he longs to see you. You must go to him directly; he
lives close by."
I hardly knew whether he was drunk or sober. "My bother the great
M'Kamma Kamrasi!" I felt bewildered with astonishment. Then, "If you are
not Kamrasi, pray who are you?" I asked. "Who am I?" he replied. "Ha,
ha, ha! that's very good; who am I?--I am M'Gambi, the brother of
Kamrasi; I am the younger brother, but HE IS THE KING."
The deceit of this country was incredible. I had positively never seen
the real Kamrasi up to this moment, and this man M'Gambi now confessed
to having impersonated the king, his brother, as Kamrasi was afraid that
I might be in league with Debono's people to murder him, and therefore
he had ordered his brother M'Gambi to act the king.
I told M'Gambi that I did not wish to see his brother, the king, as I
should perhaps be again deceived and be introduced to some impostor like
himself; and that as I did not choose to be made a fool of, I should
decline the introduction. This distressed him exceedingly. He said that
the king was really so great a man that he, his own brother, dared not
sit on a stool in his presence, and that he had only kept in retirement
as a matter of precaution, as Debono's people had allied themselves
with his enemy Rionga in the preceding year, and he dreaded treachery.
I laughed contemptuously at M'Gambi, telling him that if a woman like my
wife dared to trust herself far from her own country among such savages
as Kamrasi's people, their king must be weaker than a woman if he dared
not show himself in his own territory. I concluded by saying that I
should not go to see Kamrasi, but that he should come to visit me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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