NEGOTIATING WITH MYONGA. 
117 
this representation to the sultan, lie expressed great 
sympathy at first, saying, ' Your property will all be 
restored, and you shall have men from me to convey 
your goods to Karague/ This was a mere ruse. In 
four days after the attack I was in a position, by aid 
sent me from Speke, to march ahead; but the Wezees 
said, ' If you attempt a forced march, and leave with- 
out obtaining the sultan's permission, we will run 
away/ In reply to my request to be allowed to leave 
his country, saying I was satisfied with having re- 
covered so much, he very coolly replied, ' 1 want no 
present from you, but must have your Seedees with 
their guns to aid me in an attack against a neigh- 
bour of mine/ But though two of my men volun- 
teered to go, intending to escape from him during 
the night, the proposal seemed preposterous ; and, 
to settle the affair, a scarlet blanket was taken from 
my bedding and sent to the sultan, along with some 
other cloths. These were returned contemptuously, 
with a message that I must aid him with men and 
guns. The Seedees would not hear of my going 
to see this ruffian of a sultan, neither could they man- 
age him themselves ; their remonstrances and plead- 
ings had become stale. The natives in the mean time 
were boisterous, refusing our bead coinage. I tried to 
make use of my rifle in the jungles, but failed to get 
anything. In my rounds I only saw the brutality of the 
people towards travellers in pouncing upon a party of 
four women and two men, demanding their bows and 
arrows, which I saved by interference. Again, the 
coarse fellows struck so brutally a donkey which Speke 
had with him on his former journey to Lake Nyanza, 
that the animal, then in foal, died. For this no re- 
