Lumeresi, the chief of the district, who lived ten miles to the eastward, had been constantly pressing him to leave this post and come to his palace, as he felt greatly affronted at our having shunned him and put up with Ruhe.

He did not want property, he said, but he could not bear that the strangers had lived with his mtoto, or child, which Ruhe was, and yet would not live with him.

He thought Baraka's determined obstinacy on this could only be caused by the influence of the head man of the village, and threatened that if Baraka did not come to visit him at once, he would have the head man beheaded.

Then, shifting round a bit, he thought of ordering his subjects to starve the visitors into submission, and said he must have a hongo equal to Ruhe's.
To all this Baraka replied, that he was merely a servant, and as he had orders to stop where he was, he could not leave it until I came; but to show there was no ill-feeling towards him, he sent the chief a cloth.
These first explanations over, I entered my tent, in which Baraka had been living, and there I found a lot of my brass wires on the ground, lying scattered about.

I did not like the look of this, so ordered Bombay to resume his position of factotum, and count over the kit.
Whilst this was going on, a villager came to me with a wire, and asked me to change it for a cloth.