This was just what I wanted.

It had struck me that personal conferences with me so roused the excitable king, that there was no bringing plain matters of business home to him; so, detaching seven men with Bombay, I told him, before shooting, to be sure and elicit the matter I wanted--which was, to excite the king's cupidity by telling him I had a boat full of stores with two white men at Gani, whom I wished to call to me if he would furnish some guides to accompany my men; and further, as Grant could not walk, I wished boats sent for him, at least as far as the ferry on the Kitangule, to which place Rumanika, at any rate, would slip him down in canoes.

At once, on arriving, Mtesa admitted the men, and ordered them to shoot at some cows; but Bombay, obeying my orders to first have his talk out, said, No--before he could shoot he must obey master and deliver his message; which no sooner was told than the king, in a hurry, excited by the prospects of sport, impatiently said, "Very good; I will send men either by water or overland through Kidi, [19] just as your master likes; only some of his men had better go with mine: but now shoot cows, shoot cows; for I want to see how the Waguana shoot." They shot seven, and all were given to them when they were dismissed.

In the evening the pages came to ask me if I would like to shoot kites in the palace with their king; but I declined shooting anything less than elephants, rhinoceros, or buffaloes; and even for these I would not go out unless the king went with me;--a dodge I conceived would tend more than any other to bring us together, and so break through those ceremonial restraints of the court, which at present were stopping all pans of progression.
25th .-- The king invited me to shoot with him--really buffaloes--close to the palace; but as the pages had been sent off in a hurry, without being fully instructed, I declined, on the plea that I had always been gulled and kept waiting or treated with incivility, for hours before I obtained an interview; and as I did not wish to have any more ruptures in the palace, I proposed Bombay should go to make proper arrangements for my reception on the morrow--as anyhow, at present I felt indisposed.

The pages dreaded their master's wrath, departed for a while, and then sent another lad to tell me he was sorry to hear I felt unwell, but he hoped I would come if only for a minute, bringing my medicines with me, for he himself felt pain.