The march to King Mirambo's capital was without any incident of consequence. When within a few miles of the place they met a delegation, consisting of one of the officers who had accompanied them down the lake and two other personages of rank near the king. Doctor Bronson received them after the customary form--with presents of cloth and beads--and messengers were sent back to tell the king that his visitors were near. [Illustration: ROCKS BY THE WAYSIDE.] As they entered the capital there was a large assemblage along the principal road leading into the town, and in some places the crowd was so dense that it was not easy to proceed. In a little while a company of the king's soldiers cleared the way, and the strangers were conducted to the presence of the man whom Stanley describes as the "Mars of Central Africa." Drums were beaten and hundreds of muskets discharged by the people around the king, and one might have thought from the uproar that a battle was in progress. The king met them in front of his palace, which was a plain building, something in the style of M'tesa's at Rubaga, though smaller. The king shook hands with our friends in true European fashion, and said he was glad to see them in his country. He was dressed in Arab costume, and wore a scimitar at his side. His officers were similarly clad, and it seemed to Frank and Fred almost as though they were once more in the presence of M'tesa, so much did the manners of Mirambo's court resemble that of the ruler of Ugunda. [Illustration: CROSSING A STREAM.] Frank endorsed fully the description which Stanley gives of this famous warrior. "He was the reverse," said the explorer, "of all my conceptions of the redoubtable chieftain and the man I had styled 'the terrible bandit.' "He is a man about five feet eleven inches in height, and about thirty-five years old, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh about him--a handsome, regular-featured, mild-voiced, soft-spoken man, with what one might call a 'meek' demeanor, very generous and open-handed. The character was so different from that which I had attributed to him, that for some time a suspicion clung to my mind that I was being imposed upon; but Arabs came forward who testified that this was indeed Mirambo. I had expected to see something of the M'tesa type, a man whose exterior would explain his life and rank; but this unpresuming, mild-eyed man, of inoffensive, meek exterior, whose action was so calm, without a gesture, presented to the eye nothing of the Napoleonic genius which he has for five years displayed in the heart of Unyamwezi, to the injury of Arabs and commerce and doubling the price of ivory." Presents were exchanged as tokens of friendship, and then the conversation turned upon the plans of the travellers. When the journey to Tanganyika was mentioned Mirambo said it was just then impossible. This was a piece of intelligence the reverse of pleasing, and Doctor Bronson proceeded at once to ascertain what it meant.