Thus the M'gimi preserved their traditions of austerity. They were famous walkers and jumpers. They threw heavy spears and fought great sham-fights, and they did every violent exercise save till the ground. This was the sum and substance of the complaint which had at last come to a head. S'gono, the spokesman of The Diggers, was a headman of the inner lands, and spoke with bitter prejudice, since his own son had been rejected by the M'gimi captains as being unworthy. "Shall we men dig and sow for such as these?" he asked. "Now give a judgment, King! Every moon we must take the best of our fruit and the finest of our fish. Also so many goats and so much salt, and it is swallowed up." "Yet if I send them away," said the king, "how shall I protect this land against the warriors of the Akasava and the evil men of the swamp? Also of the Ochori, who are four days' march across good ground?" "Lord King," said S'gono, "are there no M'gimi amongst us who have passed from the camp and have their women and their children? May not these take the spear again? And are not we M'joro folk men? By my life! I will raise as many spears from The Diggers and captain them with M'joro men--this I could do between the moons and none would say that you were not protected. For we are men as bold as they." The king saw that the M'gimi party was in the minority. Moreover, he had little sympathy with the warrior caste, for his beginnings were basely rooted in the soil, and two of his sons had no more than scraped into the M'gimi. "This thing shall be done," said the king, and the roar of approval which swept up the little hillock on which he sat was his reward. Sanders, learning something of these doings, had come in haste, moving across the Lower Akasava by a short cut, risking the chagrin of certain chiefs and friends who would be shocked and mortified by his apparent lack of courtesy in missing the ceremonious call which was their due. But his business was very urgent, otherwise he would not have travelled by Nobolama--The-River-that-comes-and-goes. He was fortunate in that he found deep water for the _Wiggle_ as far as the edge of this pleasant land. A two days' trek through the forest brought him to the great city of Morjaba. In all the Territories there was no such city as this, for it stretched for miles on either hand, and indeed was one of the most densely populated towns within a radius of five hundred miles. S'kobi came waddling to meet his governor with maize, plucked in haste from the gardens he passed, and salt, grabbed at the first news of Sanders's arrival, in his big hands. These he extended as he puffed to where Sanders sat at the edge of the city. "Lord," he wheezed, "none came with news of this great honour, or my young men would have met you, and my maidens would have danced the road flat with their feet. Take!" Sanders extended both palms and received the tribute of salt and corn, and solemnly handed the crushed mess to his orderly.