THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 93 



the contents of the second barrel into the faces of his squatting 

 officers, and then laughed at his own trick. 



At the next levee the king gave one of his officers a woman, as 

 a reward of merit. This gift displeased the officer, who 

 grumbled because he had not been given more than one wife. 

 This made the king so angry that he ordered his men to seize the 

 officer and cut him to pieces. The sentence was immediately 

 carried out, but not with knives, for they are prohibited, but 

 Tvith slips of sharp-edged grass, after the executioners had first 

 dislocated his neck by a blow delivered behind the head with a 

 hsavy-headed club. Following these exhibitions of savagery 

 was another, illustrating the whimsical nature of this anomalous 

 ruler. On the day succeeding the execution of the officer, a lad, 

 not yet twenty, came upon the king suddenly and attempted 

 to kill him, at the same time declaring that he ought not to live 

 because he took the lives of men unjustly. The king had a 

 revolver with him, which had been presented by Speke, and 

 though it was unloaded, he threw its muzzle against the young 

 man's cheek, which so frightened him that he fled in great terror. 

 For this grave offense it would be natural to suppose that the 

 savage king would order his immediate execution, but instead of 

 capital punishment, he only required the young man to pay a fine 

 of one cow, and then released him. 



Mtesa's eccentricities were constantly being displayed, but his 

 savage nature was seldom tempered by deeds of mercy. Every 

 day, while Speke was sojourning in Uganda, waiting the arrival 

 of Capt. Grant and new supplies, he was in the company of the 

 boy king, whose importunities to see the white man shoot were 

 incessant. One day he requested Speke to accompany him on a 

 hunt for hippopotami. They started early in the morning, 

 accompanied by pages and fifty or more of the king's wives. 

 After a long and useless pursuit of wary hippopotami in canoes, 

 Mtesa ordered the boats rowed ashore to give his guest a picnic 

 entertainment. The party there indulged themselves drinking 

 pombe and plucking delicious fruits, which grew in great abun- 

 dance everywhere in the forest. There was no little enjoyment 



