You have often asked me to go hippopotamus-shooting with you, but I staved it off until I learnt the way to shoot.

Now, however, I can shoot--and that remarkably well too, I flatter myself.

I will have at them, and both of us will go on the lake together." The palace was now reached; musicians were ordered to play before the king, and Wakungu appointments were made to celebrate the feats of the day.

Then the royal cutler brought in dinner-knives made of iron, inlaid with squares of copper and brass, and goats and vegetables were presented as usual, when by torchlight we were dismissed, my men taking with them as many plantains as they could carry.
1st .-- I stayed at home all this day, because the king and queen had set it apart for looking at and arranging their horns--mapembe, or fetishes, as the learned call such things--to see that there are no imperfections in the Uganga.

This was something like an inquiry into the ecclesiastical condition of the country, while, at the same time, it was a religious ceremony, and, as such, was appropriate to the first day after the new moon appears.