a
great extent of fights between condemned criminals and wild animals,
especially man-monkeys, I declined to remain and be present; and Anuti,
knowing my views with regard to such barbarous spectacles, did not press
the point. On the contrary, he fully sympathised with me, and would
very gladly have abolished the custom, but public opinion was too strong
even for him; the sports were so highly appreciated that to have
suppressed them would have very seriously impaired his popularity, and
this he dared not risk just then, at the very beginning of his reign.
Therefore he did everything he could to expedite my departure,
presenting me with a beautiful team of twenty-four thoroughly broken
zebras to take the place of my slain oxen, lending me a driver to
instruct mine in the handling of them; also he insisted upon my
retaining every one of the gifts bestowed upon me by the late queen, and
added to them a second goatskin sackful of magnificent diamonds; and
finally he instructed my old friend Pousa to escort me with his squadron
to the frontier, more as a guard of honour than by way of protection,
for by that time my fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the
kingdom, and no Bandokolo would have dreamed of attempting to molest me.
And, thus magnificently rewarded for services that, after all, I at
least regarded as utterly insignificant, I took my departure from
Masakisale on my homeward journey, exactly a week after the celebration
of the funeral obsequies of Queen Bimbane, much to the regret, I was
assured, of all whose acquaintance I had made.

My departure from Masakisale was a very different affair from that of my
entrance into it. For, although I was not permitted to suspect it at
the time, there can be no doubt that I entered the capital of Bandokolo
virtually as a prisoner, and was an object of curiosity and suspicion to
everybody who set eyes upon me; while now I went forth accompanied by
expressions of regard and regret from the entire inhabitants of the
city, who seemed to have turned out _en masse_ to witness my departure
and to bid me farewell. Also, excluding what remained of my ammunition
and provisions, my wagon was loaded to its utmost capacity with gold and
precious stones; and it no longer crawled over the ground at a bare
three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the
sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would
have travelled half as fast again