Saturday, November 3, 2012

This is the people I have long sought

"This is the people I have long sought. I will stay here."
Aloud he asked:
"How often does Sandi come to you?"
"Once every year,link, master," said the chief, "on the twelfth moon, and a little after."
"When came he last?"
"When this present moon is at full, three moons since; he comes after the big rains."
"Then," said Bosambo, again to himself, "for nine months I am safe."
They built him a hut and planted for him a banana grove and gave him seed. Then he demanded for wife the daughter of the chief, and although he offered nothing in payment the girl came to him. That a stranger lived in the chief village of the Ochori was remarked by the other tribes, for news of this kind spreads, but since he was married, and into the chief's family at that, it was accepted that the man must be of the Ochori folk, and such was the story that came to headquarters. Then the chief of the Ochori died. He died suddenly in some pain; but such deaths are common, and his son ruled in his place. Then the son died after the briefest reign, and Bosambo called the people together, the elders, the wise men, and the headmen of the country.
"It appears," he said, "that the many gods of the Ochori are displeased with you, and it has been revealed to me in a dream that I shall be chief of the Ochori. Therefore,UGG Clerance, O chiefs and wise men and headmen, bow before me, as is the custom, and I will make you a great people."
It is characteristic of the Ochori that no man said "nay" to him, even though in the assembly were three men who by custom might claim the chieftainship.
Sanders heard of the new chief and was puzzled.
"Etabo?" he repeated--this was how Bosambo called himself--"I do not remember the man--yet if he can put backbone into the people I do not care who he is."
Backbone or cunning, or both, Bosambo was certainly installed.
"He has many strange practices," reported a native agent to Sanders. "Every day he assembles the men of the village and causes them to walk past a pelebi (table) on which are many eggs. And it is his command that each man as he passes shall take an egg so swiftly that no eye may see him take it. And if the man bungle or break the egg, or be slow, this new chief puts shame upon him, whipping him."
"It is a game," said Sanders; but for the life of him he could not see what game it was. Report after report reached him of the new chief's madness. Sometimes he would take the unfortunate Ochori out by night,shox torch 2, teaching them such things as they had never known before. Thus he instructed them in what manner they might seize upon a goat so that the goat could not cry. Also how to crawl on their bellies inch by inch so that they made no sound or sign. All these things the Ochori did, groaning aloud at the injustice and the labour of it.
"I'm dashed if I can understand it!" said Sanders, knitting his brows, when the last report came in. "With anybody but the Ochori this would mean war. But the Ochori,knockoff handbags!"
Notwithstanding his contempt for their fighting qualities, he kept his Police Houssas ready.
But there was no war. Instead, there came complaint from the Akasava that "many leopards were in the woods."

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