In front of us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls, piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky rested.

In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work--marrying and giving in marriage--fighting and running away--eating and drinking and watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet potatoes--without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages, missionaries, law and commerce soon to come.
Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things.

We came very close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them.
Schillingschen's tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt.

There was the risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling.

We gagged him as soon as I talked of the danger of that.
Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me.
Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without milk, and the sight of Schillingschen's distant campfire with a great pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white man's food.