Page:Two kings of Uganda.djvu/48
already undergone, he formed the heroic resolution of pushing on to the Nyanza.
It is needless to enter into details of this troublesome journey, yet it must not be supposed that moving about in any part of East Africa is free from difficulty. It is a long series of worries, greater or less, and fever and fatigue are almost necessary accompaniments.
Five or six days' travelling brought us into the country of the great chief Mirambo, who has been called, not inaptly, the Napoleon of East Africa. In the beginning of his career he was only a small "Munhamhara," or head man ; but by his genius and force of character he gradually consolidated his power, and made himself master of nearly the whole of Unyamwezi. Marvellous for the rapidity of his marches and the suddenness of his attacks, his name at this time was a terror to his enemies, and, as we had occasion to prove more than once, a tower of strength to his friends. I have read somewhere that the name "Mirambo" has an etymological connection with killing people : it may be something more than a coincidence that in the Luganda language the word "mirambo" means " corpses."
Some of us paid this redoubted chieftain a visit at his "Gwikuru," or capital, where I saw, to my astonishment, a large four-sided house, built after the manner of Zanzibar. It was by far the most solid structure I have ever seen in the interior of Africa. A number