Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/138

 and is not worth description. Lieutenant Speke here occupied a fort or stone house belong to his Abban; finding the people very suspicious, he did not enter Las Kuray for prudential motives. There the Sultan has no habitation; when he visited the place he lodged in the house of a Nacoda or ship-captain. Lieutenant Speke was delayed at Kurayat by the pretext of want of cattle; in reality to be plundered. The Sultan, who inhabits the Jungle, did not make his appearance till repeatedly summoned. About the tenth day the old man arrived on foot, attended by a dozen followers; he was carefully placed in the centre of a double line bristling with spears, and marched past to his own fort. Lieutenant Speke posted his servants with orders to fire a salute of small firearms. The consequence was that the evening was spent in prayers. During Lieutenant Speke's first visit to the Sultan, who received him squatting on the ground outside the house in which he lodged, with his guards about him, the dignitary showed great trepidation, but returned salams with politeness.< He is described as a fine-looking man, between forty-eight and fifty years of age; he was dressed in an old and dirty Tobe, had no turban, and appeared unarmed. He had consulted the claims of "dignity" by keeping the traveller waiting ten days whilst he journeyed twenty miles. Before showing himself he had privily held a Durbar at Las Kuray; it was attended by the Agils of the tribe, by Mohammed Samattar (Lieutenant Speke's Abban), and the people generally. Here the question was debated whether the traveller was to be permitted to see the country. The voice of the multitude was as usual contra, fearing to admit a wolf into the fold. It was silenced however by the Sultan, who thought fit to favour the English, and by the Abban, who settled the question, saying that he, as the Sultan's subject, was answerable for all that might