The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XVI, No. 6 [‎348r] (48/232)

AN EXPEDITION BETWEEN LAKE RUDOLF AND THE NILE.
621
On March 2 a tramp of four hours west, principally through a
highly cultivated country, brought us to Lorkale, where we were
joined by King Amara in the afternoon. We were quite unprepared
to receive so great a chief. Accustomed as we had been to meet with
petty chiefs ruling generally but a single village, we were rather taken
aback at the display made by this commander of perhaps 25,000
warriors on his visit to our camp. He was accompanied by a flag-
bearer and about 200 soldiers with rifles, and clad in various kinds
of uniforms, principally white with gay-coloured sashes and turbans,
and by a much larger following of archers and lancers, naked except
for their quick-flashing, bright helmets. Everything about Amara was
“ spick and spau,” from his dark blue uniform of a Uganda rifleman to
the European saddle upon his mule.
I received him with all the honours that I could command with
my insignificant though trained escort, for it was deemed a great
honour that he should pay me the first visit. His curiosity as to how
I had come was too great, however, for him to wait until I called on
him. It took him a long time to grasp the fact that we had not
wandered either from Uganda or Egypt; and from the many questions
he asked, it was apparent that the fact that we had come directly from
the far East exercised a great moral influence over him, which I was
pleased to think could not be otherwise than for the good of European
interests on the upper Nile.
In return for the many presents which I made him, he gave me
much durrha flour, honey, and ground nuts, but it was not until I
had bidden him accept a large leopardine blanket that covered my bed
that his heart really warmed towards me. I am sure he has never
owned anything which pleases him more than this rug, which
resembles the skin of some marvellous species of the cat family. Not
only did the king at once send for an escort and guides for us, but he
insisted on having a large tusk brought me from his village, to my
regret, for I am afraid a poor native had some of his bones broken in
consequence, if he did not fare worse. This man had made a mistake,
and instead of bringing the tusk the king had ordered, he arrived at
midnight with two ridiculously small cow tusks. Amara was so
enraged that, picking up one of the latter, he began beating the
Avretched messenger in a terrible manner.
The smiling chief had suddenly turned into such a ferocious brute
that when I endeavoured to prevent his killing his subject, he at first
turned upon me a pair of eyes so full of passion that I feared lest he
might deal his next blow at me, but I pretended that I had only inter
rupted him to praise the two small tusks, with which “I would be
delighted,” etc., and thus managed to quiet him. The unconscious
body of his victim was almost hurled out of camp, and others sent
to bring the proper tusk, which did not arrive until two o’clock in the
morning.