CHAPTER XXIV

THE  GOVERNOR, SIR  FRANCIS  FLEMING,  K.C.M.G.,  MEETS
THE TREATY CHIEFS AT BANDASUMA, 1893

At the beginning of 1893, it was officially decided that
the Governor, Sir Francis Fleming, should hold a great
meeting in the Barri country in order that he might see
and address the numerous paramount chiefs who had,
since the opening up of the country, entered into treaty
with the British Government. I was therefore instructed
to proceed up the country to visit these chiefs and en¬
deavour to bring them down to this proposed meeting.

I left Sulima on the 2nd of January, and the meeting
was to be held at Bandasuma on the 7th of March,
1893, which allowed me two months to bring the chiefs
together.

At first sight my task may appear a very easy matter,
but in a country that is filled with superstition and in
which the Mori fetish workers play so prominent a part
and have so firm a hold upon the chiefs, through the country
medicines, it is a work of almost insuperable difficulty.
As I went along interviewing the chiefs and extending to
them the invitation of the Governor to meet him, the affair
required a very great deal of careful manipulation, because