AT THE GAMP OF MTESA. 725 



doubtedly the Mtesa of to-day is vastly superior to the vain youth whom 

 Speke and Grant saw. There is now no daily butchery of men or women ; 

 seldom one suffers the extreme punishment. Speke and Grant left him a raw, 

 vain youth, and a heathen. He is now a gentleman, and, professing Islam- 

 ism, submits to other laws than his own erratic will, which we are told led to 

 such severe and fatal consequences. All his captains and chief officers ob- 

 serve the same creed, dress in Arab costume, and in other ways affect Arab 

 customs. He has a guard of two hundred men — renegadoes from Baker's 

 Expedition, Zanzibar defalcators, a few Omani, and the elect of Uganda. 

 Behind his throne, an arm-chair of native manufacture, the royal shield- 

 bearers, lance-bearers, and gun-bearers, stand erect and staid. On either 

 side of him are his grand chiefs and courtiers, sons of governors of his pro- 

 vinces, chiefs of districts, etc. Outside the audience house, the lengthy 

 lines of warriors begin with the chief drummer and the noisy goma-beaters ; 

 next come the screaming fifers, the flag and banner bearers, the fusiliers, and 

 so on seemingly ad infinitum, with spearmen and attendants. 



" Mtesa asked a number of questions about various things, thereby 

 showing a vast amount of curiosity, and great intelligence. The king had 

 arrived at this camp — Usavara — fourteen days before my arrival, with all 

 that immense army of followers, for the purpose of shooting birds. He now 

 proposed to return, after two or three days' rest, to his capital at Ulagalla, 

 or Uragara. Each day of my stay at Usavara was a scene of gaiety and 

 rejoicing. On the first day after my arrival, we held a grand naval review ; 

 eighty-four canoes being under way, each manned by from thirty to forty 

 men, containing, in the aggregate, a force of about two thousand five hun- 

 dred men. We had excellent races, and witnessed various manoeuvres by 

 water. Each admiral vied with the others in extolling aloud the glory of 

 their monarch, or in exciting admiration from the hundreds of spectators on 

 shore. The king's three hundred wives were present en grande tenue, and 

 were not the least important of those on shore. The second day the king 

 led his fleet in person, to show me his prowess in shooting birds. We rowed, 

 or were rather paddled, up ' Murchison Creek,' visiting en route a dhow he is 

 building for the navigation of the lake, as well as his place of residence dur- 

 ing Ramadan, and his former capital, ' Banda,' where Speke and Grant 

 found him. 



u En passant, I may remark that Speke could not possibly have seen the 

 whole of the immense bay he has denominated ' Creek.' It is true that from 

 a short distance west of Dwaga, the king's Ramadan Palace, up to Mrjgono, 

 the extremity of the water, a distance of about eight miles, it might be termed 

 a creek, but this distance does not approach to one-half of the true bay. In- 

 deed, I respectfully request geographers — Messrs Keith Johnston and Stan- 

 ford especially — to change the name of Murchison Creek to Murchison Bay, 



