202 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
of this, he resumed friendly relations by paying me a 
state visit in my “ town.” Here he gossiped to his 
heart’s content, and peered like an inquisitive child 
into all the recesses of my house. It was the first time 
he had visited me since I had begun building, and he 
was amazed at the progress made. Then he asked to 
see all my “ wonderful things,” and on the whole 
behaved very well, asking for nothing. At length, 
after uneasily fidgeting on his chair, he said hurriedly, 
“ And now bring out your elephant-gun ; I must see 
it.” All my men looked scared ; now I was going to 
be fleeced. “Musty on see it, Mandara?” I asked, 
gravely looking in his face. 66 No,” said the poor 
savage, with a sudden effort to control his covetous¬ 
ness, “ I will not see it. Do not show it to me, lest I 
should desire it.” 
Really, why I made such a fuss about this ele¬ 
phant-gun seems hard to understand, for it turned 
out a useless and burdensome weapon, unreliable 
for greater distances than twenty yards, but in 
those days it seemed to us to sum up all the ques¬ 
tion of our resistance to Mandara’s encroachments. 
We felt if we yielded the elephant-gun we should 
never be able to make a stand on anything else, and 
then everything would go, and we might be stripped 
as New was. However, on the occasion of this visit, 
I did my best to be gracious, and opened a bottle of 
champagne—with some trepidation, imagining Man¬ 
dara would insist on the rest of the dozen—and a tin 
of cocoanut biscuits. However, the champagne 
created but a poor impression—I think it was too dry 
for his palate—while on the other hand, he simply 
tucked the tin of biscuits under his arm and walked 
off with it, enraptured with the first one he had 
