314 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
they compelled me to imitate him, while the quick, 
nervous gestures and the bold voice of Sheikh Hamed, 
seeming entirely out of place, jarred upon me. 
It was no wonder that the peremptory and imperious, 
vivid-eyed Mtesa respected and loved this sweet-tem- 
pered pagan. Though they had never met, Mtesa’s 
pages had described him, and with their powers of 
mimicry had brought the soft modulated tones of 
Eumanika to his ears as truly as they had borne his 
amicable messages to him. 
What greater contrasts can be imagined than the 
natures of the Emperor Mtesa and the King Rumanika ? 
In some of his volcanic passions Mtesa seemed to be 
Fury personified, and if he were represented on the 
stage in one of his furious moods, I fear that the actor 
would rupture a blood-vessel, destroy his eyes, and be 
ever afterwards afflicted with madness. The Waganda 
always had recourse to action and gesture to supplement 
their verbal descriptions of his raging fits. His eyes, 
they said, were “ balls of fire and large as fists,” while his 
words were “like gunpowder.” 
Nature, which had endowed Mtesa with a nervous 
and intense temperament, had given Rumanika the 
placid temper, ‘the soft voice, the mild benignity, and 
pleasing character of a gentle father. 
The king appeared to me, clad as he was in red 
blanket cloth, when seated, a man of middle size, but 
when he afterwards stood up, he rose to the gigantic 
stature of six feet six inches or thereabouts, for the top 
of my head, as we walked side by side, only reached 
near his shoulders. His face w T as long, and his nose 
somewhat Roman in shape ; the profile showed a deci- 
dedly refined type. 
Our interview was very pleasing, and he took exces- 
sive interest in every question I addressed to him. 
When I spoke, he imposed silence on his friends, and 
leaned forward with eager attention. If I wished to 
know anything about the geography of the country, he 
immediately sent for some particular person who was 
acquainted with that portion, and inquired searchingly 
