At 9.0 a.m. the church drums beat, and King Kasagama, dressed in a cloud of white and elaborate silk draperies, came down to act “father” to the bride. His Majesty looked almost pale with the responsibility of his new position, and scarcely trusted himself to speak as he took his “child’s” hand and led her from the house along the road lined with crowds of his excited people. The church presented a sea of black faces and white linen garments freshly washed for the occasion. Everyone was standing, for there was no room to sit down. A Lunyoro hymn was sung, and then the service proceeded in English till the close, when the faithful old native deacon Apolo offered prayer in the language of the people. The usual carriages and greys had to be dispensed with as the livery stables were a little too far off! But a regulation reception took place and about seventy guests crowded into the very limited space of the European’s sitting room. A real iced cake specially imported, was mounted on a stool draped with trails of wild clematis. Heaped up dishes of thick sandwiches, stodgy jam tarts, cakes and biscuits, that suggested a Sunday School treat for at least some hundreds of hungry English bairns, proved a scarcely adequate supply for the visitors, who started on the cake, then tucked in sandwiches, jam tarts and sandwiches again, and so on, in a hopeless mix up. The tea was served round time after time, till the guests, out of sheer inability, had reluctantly to refuse further supplies. One chief, with a sigh, regretfully eyeing a dish of cake, exclaimed: “Okwongera nukwo kufa”—“Any more would be death.” As the guests departed, timidly limped forward old Mpisi, the first dispensary patient. He had been silently waiting his opportunity to slip in and give the bride his little wedding gift of five cowrie shells: their value was one-third of a farthing, but they were all he possessed. The honeymoon was spent “on the Continent”—the dark continent of Africa, a trip of about 700 miles, across lake and over land, visiting a continual succession of mission stations. It included a visit to the Government Capital of Entebbe, where an official repetition of the marriage service had to be performed. Fancy being married twice within one month! As the happy pair rode off on mules, actually the customary rice followed them. A mob of natives enjoyed this part immensely; but some of the women ran up, and tearing the bracelets and necklaces from their own wrists and necks, gave them to the bride with sympathetic tears! Even the slipper was not wanting; it was delivered to a native to throw at the couple as they turned off at cross-roads, but not quite seeing the point, and having a respectful regard for the shoe, he solemnly presented it as a parting greeting from the Europeans! CHAPTER VIII The Women of Toro