Could I after that refuse him such a mere trifle as a compass?
I told him he might as well put my eyes out and ask me to walk home, as take away that little instrument, which could be of no use to him, as he could not read or understand it.
But this only excited his cupidity; he watched it twirling round and pointing to the north, and looked and begged again, until, tired of his importunities, I told him I must wait until the Usoga road was open before I could part with it, and then the compass would be nothing to what I would give him.

Hearing this, "That is all on my shoulders; as sure as I live it shall be done; for that country has no king, and I have long been desirous of taking it." I declined, however, to give him the instrument on the security of his promise, and he went to breakfast.
I walked off to Usungu to see what I could do for him in his misery.
I found that he had a complication of evils entirely beyond my healing power, and among them inveterate forms of the diseases which are generally associated with civilisation and its social evils.

I could do nothing to cure him, but promised to do whatever was in my power to alleviate his sufferings.
24th .-- Before breakfast I called on poor Usungu, prescribing hot coffee to be drunk with milk every morning, which astonished him not a little, as the negroes only use coffee for chewing.

He gave my men pombe and plantains.

On my return I met a page sent to invite me to the palace.
I found the king sitting with a number of women.