UGANDA- BY- PEN 
 AND^CAMERA^s 
 
 BY CW-HATTERSLEY j WITH A 
 PREFACEBY' T-FVICTORBUXTON 
 
 ^ ] M - \&<\ LLllSTRAfltM-S 
 
Cibrarp of <the theological ^emmarp 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Del a van L« Pier son 
 
DAUDI CWA, KING OF UGANDA. 
 
 (Photographed at the age of six.) 
 
 1 UGANDA.] 
 
t ;'- .'-*-- C SEP;, '1951 s ' 
 
 UGANDA BY PEN 
 AND CAMERA 
 
 y by 
 
 C. W. HATTERSLEY 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 T. F. VICTOR BUXTON 
 
 PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE UNION PRESS 
 1816 Chestnut Street 
 1907 
 
PRINTED IN ENGLAND 
 
PREFACE 
 
 BY T. F. V. BUXTON 
 
 Much has been written about the past 
 history of Uganda, from the time 
 of Stanley's visit in 1875 and onwards. 
 Thirty years is a short period in the history 
 of a people ; but in this case the period 
 has been so full of kaleidoscopic changes, 
 and has been marked by so many critical 
 events, that its history reads like a romance. 
 The rapidity with which these changes have 
 taken place result in this, that the best 
 descriptions of the country, written even 
 a few years since, are quite inapplicable 
 to the present time ; and thus there is ample 
 room for such an account as Mr. Charles 
 Hattersley gives in the present book. 
 
i 
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Uganda is a country which has called 
 forth an extraordinary amount of interest 
 and sympathy here at home, and there are 
 numbers who will welcome this latest picture 
 of its people. Among them I hope there 
 may be many young men whose thoughts 
 are turning to the missionary life, and who 
 wish to study a field in which, under God's 
 providence, their future work may lie. The 
 picture given here is graphic and attractive, 
 and I can bear witness that it is also faith- 
 ful and true to life. I had the privilege the 
 year before last of paying a visit to Uganda ; 
 and it is pleasant, in turning over the pages 
 of Mr. Hattersley's chapters, to have in- 
 numerable incidents of the journey and 
 details of native life recalled by his descrip- 
 tions, and by the excellent photographs with 
 which they are illustrated. 
 
 Peace and security now reign in Uganda, 
 and the English resident suffers from none 
 of the anxiety as to personal safety to 
 
PREFACE 
 
 vii 
 
 which he and his predecessors were exposed 
 a few short years ago. But the missionary- 
 to-day, as Mr. Hattersley indicates, has to 
 face other difficulties which are no less 
 anxious to one whose whole heart is in 
 the work. British administration has broken 
 down the old restraints, and individual 
 freedom of action prevails as never before. 
 At the same time there is an in-rush ot 
 new influences from Europe and from India, 
 which are often in direct antagonism to 
 those of the missionary. The Christian 
 Church is thus passing through a time of 
 sifting and trial, and there seems a special 
 call now for unwavering faith in the power 
 of prayer and in the assured triumph of 
 the Grace of God. 
 
 To meet the new circumstances, it is 
 obvious that one of the most important 
 objects to be kept in view must be the 
 imparting of sound education. Elementary 
 schools have already done a noble work, 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 and the Baganda have proved apt and eager 
 pupils ; but among many of them the demand 
 has now arisen for something more than 
 the three R's and simple Bible-teaching. 
 The whole system of education in Mengo, 
 and throughout the country, is being revised 
 and extended, and the ability which Mr. 
 Hattersley has already shown in this branch 
 of missionary work points him out as one 
 who must take a prominent part in the 
 improvements now under consideration. 
 
 We were impressed by the signs of vigour 
 and efficiency evident in the conduct of 
 the large boys' school under his charge, 
 and were greatly interested in a project 
 for which he was preparing at the time 
 of our visit to Mengo. Mr. Hattersley 
 was then busy over the erection of a group 
 of small boarding-houses for the sons of 
 chiefs in different parts of the country, for 
 whom better education was desirable than 
 could be obtained in their village schools. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ix 
 
 One ot these houses had been provided 
 by the Administration to accommodate young 
 chiefs from Busoga, for whom it was con- 
 sidered important that they should be re- 
 moved for a time from undesirable home 
 influences, and trained in a way more likely 
 to qualify them for taking their part worthily 
 in the government of their country. The 
 work of these boarding-houses is now in 
 full swing, and they must form a very 
 valuable adjunct to the day school. We 
 shall not soon forget our visit to this latter 
 institution. The large grass-thatched build- 
 ing was well filled, and all the boys seemed 
 to be working keenly at their lessons, while 
 the teachers were throwing themselves 
 heartily into the work of imparting know- 
 ledge. The most interesting class was 
 a gathering of senior boys, many of them 
 practically grown up, who were receiving 
 systematic Bible-teaching from Mr. Hattersley 
 himself. 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 It is pleasant to notice how all the teaching 
 in Mengo clusters round the great cathedral, 
 recently built by the Baganda under Mr. 
 Borup's able superintendence. This cathe- 
 dral stands on one of the twin tops of 
 Namirembe, the highest among a group of 
 hills over which the capital is scattered. 
 The three tall peaks by which its roof is 
 surmounted form a striking feature in the 
 view from any of the surrounding hills, and 
 the cathedral itself is set off by the lower 
 buildings which lie about it, though separated 
 by an ample space of level ground. The 
 boys' and girls' schools lie beyond the east 
 end, while on one side is the building filled 
 daily with numbers of candidates preparing 
 for baptism or confirmation, and on the 
 other side are carried on the classes for 
 training teachers, male and female. 
 
 Of these, the young men are under Mr. 
 Roscoe's charge — and a heavy charge it is, 
 considering the numbers to be trained. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 xi 
 
 When we visited him at his work, we found 
 the room well filled with about a hundred 
 teachers in training, who were writing out 
 answers to Bible questions. To maintain 
 order among so large a number, who have 
 known practically nothing of discipline before 
 they joined the classes, is in itself no light 
 task ; but the fact that all are voluntary 
 learners makes the work easier than it 
 otherwise would be. The missionary has, 
 of course, many anxieties regarding the 
 spiritual tone of those who offer themselves 
 as Christian workers ; but some test of their 
 sincerity and zeal is provided by the fact 
 that the majority come from a distance, and 
 find considerable difficulty in providing for 
 themselves during their stay at the capital. 
 Many have, in fact, to endure real hardness, 
 and often go short of food, in their anxiety 
 to learn and to qualify themselves for pastoral 
 and missionary labour. 
 
 The avidity for learning evidenced by 
 
xii 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 these intending teachers, and among the 
 rapidly-growing classes of Baganda who can 
 read and write, shows the immense import- 
 ance of providing wholesome literature in 
 the Luganda language. Hitherto the Bible 
 has been practically the only book, and we 
 may be deeply thankful that the Word of 
 God has had the first place, and has had 
 time to influence the Baganda so deeply 
 before other books were translated. Now, 
 however, the demand is extending, and must 
 be supplied. The work of the Bible Society 
 will, we hope and expect, not diminish, but 
 go on steadily increasing ; but its sister 
 societies, the Religious Tract Society and 
 the S.P.C.K., are needed to supplement its 
 work without delay. The R.T.S. has already 
 made several grants for Uganda, either free 
 or at reduced rates. These have consisted 
 chiefly of English books to help the mission- 
 aries in teaching ; but now the great need 
 is for vernacular literature, and a vast field 
 
PREFACE 
 
 xiii 
 
 of usefulness lies before the R.T.S. in the 
 future. It is to be hoped that the committee 
 and friends of that society may realise how 
 critical is the present opportunity, and may 
 supply the Baganda with an abundance of 
 wholesome books before the flood of evil 
 literature, which follows our so-called civilisa- 
 tion, begins to percolate into the country. 
 
 Having dwelt thus upon the importance 
 of education and of literature, I cannot do 
 better than conclude by endorsing with all 
 my heart the remarks Mr. Hattersley makes 
 on pages 34 and 35 of this book. He 
 has been reminding us that the European 
 in Uganda needs to be an all-round man, 
 capable of turning his hand to a great variety 
 of work, and he reminds us here that, in 
 house building and other manual labour, the 
 missionary has opportunities of commending 
 the Gospel to many who cannot be reached 
 in the class-room. It is true in Uganda, as 
 elsewhere, that the life tells more than words, 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 and it is important that all who go out to 
 that country should realise the immense 
 responsibility resting upon them. Every 
 action will be watched, every word will be 
 noted, and Christianity will be judged by 
 its influence in the little things of daily life. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE. BY T. F. VICTOR BUXTON . . V 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. HOW TO GET THERE .... I 
 
 II. THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE . . 19 
 
 III. THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS . 4 1 
 
 IV. THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES . 60 
 V. AT SCHOOL AT MENGO . . . .73 
 
 VI. TRAVELLING IN UGANDA . . .88 
 
 VII. CHURCHES AND TEACHERS . . . 103 
 
 VIII. SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY .III 
 
 IX. UGANDA ONCE MORE . . . .122 
 xv 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 DAUDI CWA, KING OF UGANDA (PHOTOGRAPHED 
 
 at the age of six) Frontispiece 
 
 Facing page 
 
 MOMBASA TERMINUS : OFF THE LINE ! TOWN OF 
 
 MOMBASA I 
 
 KING'S ROAD, FROM MENGO TO NAMIREMBE . . 1 5 
 
 YUNIA, DAUDl'S COUSIN, THE QUEEN-SISTER . . 26 
 
 HOUSE-BUILDING BY MISSIONARIES AND NATIVES : 
 
 (i) BUILDING ; (2) CARPENTERING ; (3) THATCHING 33 
 
 THE TOMB OF KING KAMANYA, GRANDFATHER OF 
 
 MTESA 45 
 
 LUBARE INSTRUMENTS MAGIC WANDS, HORNS, AND 
 
 DRUMS 50 
 
 TWO QUEENS OF KING SUNA AND ATTENDANTS . . 54 
 
 WOMAN CARRYING A HUGE LOG OF FIREWOOD . .57 
 
 CHIEF MUKUBNKWATA AND HIS SON : THE REV. 
 HENRY WRIGHT DUTA, WITH HIS WIFE AND 
 FAMILY 60 
 
 xvii 2 
 
xviii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Facing page 
 
 CONGREGATION LEAVING MENGO CATHEDRAL : 
 
 COUNTING THE COLLECTION .... 66 
 
 THE MENGO INFANTS* CLASS — LEARNING TO READ 
 
 THE ALPHABET ....... 73 
 
 THE SENIOR BIBLE CLASS IN THE MENGO BOYS' 
 
 SCHOOL 76 
 
 A GROUP OF SCHOLARS IN THE MENGO BOYS* SCHOOL 84 
 SOME NOTABLE PUPILS : A BOY TEACHING AN OLD 
 
 MAN OF SIXTY TO READ 86 
 
 THE READING-ROOM OF THE VILLAGE CHURCH : A 
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH, NAKANYUNYI . . . IO3 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF MITIANA CHURCH .... IO4 
 
 LUGUMBA, THE CHIEF WHO RELINQUISHED HIS POSI- 
 TION TO BECOME A TEACHER .... 106 
 
 CHRISTIAN BOYS AND YOUNG WOMEN IN UGANDA . Ill 
 
 BARK-CLOTH : STRIPPING OFF THE BARK : BEATING 
 
 IT OUT 113 
 
 A CHRISTIAN WEDDING GROUP . . . I 1 5 
 
 THE REV. AND MRS. Z. KIZITO A CHRISTIAN CHIEF 
 
 AND HIS WIFE Il6 
 
 THE REV. BARTOLOMAYO MUSOKE WITH HIS WIFE 
 
 AND FAMILY 120 
 
 MARKET SCENE AT NAMIREMBE, MENGO . . .126 
 
I. TOWN OK MOMBASA. 2. MOMBASA TERMINUS, 
 
 3. OFF THE LINE. 
 
UGANDA BY PEN 
 AND CAMERA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HOW TO GET THERE 
 
 The journey to Uganda is nowadays not 
 the tedious business it was up to the 
 year 1902. It is no longer necessary to 
 do it on foot. The whole journey can be 
 accomplished in twenty-six days, from 
 London to Mengo. Crossing from Dover to 
 Calais, passing by train through Paris and 
 Lyons to Marseilles, and thence through 
 the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, and the 
 Red Sea, we round Cape Guardafui, and go 
 
 1 
 
2 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 down the East African Coast as far as 
 Mombasa. 
 
 The sea-passage usually occupies twenty- 
 one days. It is possible to go by a P. & O. 
 steamer as far as Aden, and there change 
 into a British India Steam Navigation Co.'s 
 boat ; but most people prefer the French or 
 German liners, which entail no change at 
 Aden. Foreign boats are subsidised by 
 their respective Governments, and give 
 much better terms than the English boats. 
 Although the distance, as the crow flies, 
 is not more than 5,000 miles, the circuitous 
 route makes us travel over 8,000 miles 
 before reaching Uganda. From Mombasa 
 to Mengo by land, as measured by cyclo- 
 meter, is 711 miles; but the present-day 
 route is 584 miles by rail to the Lake 
 Victoria, and 175 miles across the lake from 
 Ugowe Bay, or Kisumu, to Entebe, and 
 from Entebe to Mengo 18 miles by road. 
 The journey has been so often described 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 3 
 
 that I do not intend to devote much time 
 to that. It must suffice to show a picture 
 of Mombasa, which strikes one on landing 
 as being remarkably pretty. The white 
 houses of the Government officers, and 
 traders, contrasting with the vivid green of 
 the foliage, and the blue sky and sea, all 
 combine to produce a very pleasing effect, 
 as the sun is shining brightly almost every 
 day in the year. 
 
 Mombasa has been much improved during 
 the last few years. Much better accommo- 
 dation has been provided, which is, however, 
 not necessary for missionaries, who do not 
 use the hotels ; warm-hearted brethren 
 usually meet the new arrivals, and extend 
 kind hospitality during their limited stay 
 there. 
 
 We make our way to the railway station 
 and take our tickets for Uganda, but the 
 train service is somewhat restricted. For 
 half the distance, little over 300 miles, to 
 
4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 Nairobi, there are as many as three trains 
 a week, but beyond that point to the 
 lake one or two passenger trains a week 
 are considered ample for the small number 
 of passengers. At the time of writing this, 
 the upper part of the line is not yet 
 permanent, and the heavy rains are con- 
 stantly washing away parts of embankments, 
 and the line being only single often causes 
 much delay. Our illustration represents 
 one such delay, where it took two hours 
 to go 200 yards, the train coming off the 
 line five times. 
 
 Where one is not anxious to catch a 
 steamer (we were, in this particular case), 
 such delays are rather more amusing than 
 distressing, for it is possible and allowable 
 to get out of the train and take a walk 
 or take snapshots ; but it is not advisable 
 to walk too far ahead of the train, as there 
 is positively no guarantee that it will catch 
 you up that day, and you may find yourself 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 5 
 
 stranded in the wilderness. Such a delay 
 is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, 
 and, as a rule, the train makes a very 
 good journey. The train ride is full of 
 interest to the traveller. The types of 
 various nations seen at the stations and 
 along the route, and the numerous herds 
 of wild animals, prove a source of wonder 
 and amusement, though there are great 
 tracts of country in which no sign of life 
 at all can be seen. On our arrival at 
 Ugowe Bay, in all probability, a steamer 
 will be found waiting. There are other 
 names applied to this bay. One is Port 
 Florence, another is Kisumu, but they all 
 refer to the same place, which is a large 
 bay forty-five miles long in Kavirondo. 
 
 It is here we get our first glimpse of 
 the great Victoria Lake, or Nyanza, as the 
 natives call a lake. It is well known by 
 now that the lake is sufficiently big to put 
 into it the whole of Ireland. Roughly 
 
6 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 speaking it is 1,000 miles in circumference, 
 with an area of 40,000 square miles. It 
 is fresh water, and subject to very severe 
 storms indeed. There is, of course, no tide, 
 but the lake is subject to rises and falls 
 of as much as ten feet, probably due to 
 rainfall ; but it is difficult to understand 
 some of the high-water marks on the rocks 
 in various parts. Some people have thought 
 that these rises take place in a sort of 
 cycle of years. The middle of the lake 
 has only lately been explored. 
 
 All round near the shores are islands 
 of various sizes, mostly inhabited and very 
 fertile, the scenery for the most part being 
 tropical. The lake abounds in fish, many 
 very large and very good eating, and the 
 natives, although catching a great deal near 
 the shores, rarely venture on deep-sea fishing. 
 They fish both with line and traps. There 
 are many hippopotami and crocodiles. The 
 hippopotamus is not dangerous to life if left 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 7 
 
 alone, though sometimes attacking canoes 
 with very disastrous results. It appears to 
 be not generally known that crocodiles 
 perpetuate the species by laying eggs, about 
 the size of an ordinary duck's egg, with 
 very tough shells. These are laid in holes 
 scraped in the sand, and hatched by the heat 
 of the sun. A crocodile will lay from eighty 
 to one hundred and twenty in one batch. 
 Fortunately few of these arrive at maturity, as 
 there are numerous birds, fish, and crocodiles 
 awaiting the young when they emerge from 
 the shells, but one can rarely go on the 
 lake for even a very short distance without 
 seeing crocodiles, and it is very inadvisable 
 to bathe in shallow waters. 
 
 The natives on these islands are very 
 clever at making canoes. People have an 
 idea that because they are only sewn 
 together these canoes do not last long. It 
 merely means that they require re-sewing, for 
 they are only sewn together with the fibre 
 
8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 of a palm-tree. The boards will last as long 
 as twenty years. The boats cannot really 
 sink even if full of water. They would 
 if the crew stayed in, but at the first sign 
 of swamping the crew jump out into the 
 water, and cling to the edge of the canoe 
 until the storm abates. Then, one by one, 
 the men carefully get in, each baling out 
 in turn a little water, and then on they 
 go. The natives would not travel in a 
 canoe which did not leak, as they consider 
 it would not go well without water in the 
 bottom to balance it, and one man's business 
 is always to be baling out. 
 
 For European travellers and chiefs a 
 bridge of twigs, covered with grass, is 
 spread over the water in the bottom of 
 the canoe, and travelling can be made fairly 
 comfortable by means of bales of bedding 
 and other packages as back-rests. The 
 paddlers face the way they are going, and 
 keep up a dismal chant most of the time, 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 9 
 
 which encourages them to paddle more or 
 less in time. Crossing the lake from 
 Ugowe Bay to Entebe by steamer occupies 
 the greater part of two days, one night 
 being spent at anchor, as the narrow 
 passages between some of these islands 
 are very dangerous to traverse at night. 
 Two new railway steamers were launched 
 in 1903, and travelling is now fairly com- 
 fortable. The line of the equator is crossed 
 en route, so it goes without saying that in 
 Uganda there is always twelve hours' sun- 
 light and eleven hours' darkness, with two 
 half hours of what may be called twilight 
 dividing the two. In March and September 
 there is absolutely no shadow at noon, the 
 sun being immediately overhead. 
 
 There are no seasons in Uganda, roughly 
 speaking. It is always hot, and it has 
 been said that the heat penetrates into the 
 ground six feet all the year round, as 
 against one foot in England, in July and 
 
io UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 August. There are what are called rainy 
 seasons, commencing about March and 
 September, but they are very uncertain, 
 and, even in the rainy seasons, rain rarely 
 falls continuously for more than a few hours. 
 Rain is plentiful most of the year, June 
 and December being the only really dry 
 months. Hailstorms are frequent, and some- 
 times severe. Some thirty years ago, the 
 natives say, there was a terrible storm of 
 hail, and the hailstones remained on the 
 ground for three days. Numbers of people 
 were killed, and numerous others died 
 from cold. Many huts were knocked down 
 by the force of the stones, and most of 
 the plantations very severely damaged. 
 Thunder-storms are frequent, and often terrific, 
 houses being constantly struck by lightning 
 and destroyed. 
 
 It does not seem as though Uganda 
 proper is a country for settlers, but probably 
 the heat is not the greatest barrier to this. 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 
 
 The elevation is high, over 4,400 feet above 
 sea-level, and probably the rarity of the 
 atmosphere has something to do with the 
 feeling of depression which one constantly 
 experiences after four years' residence in 
 the country without a furlough. When the 
 atmosphere is so rare, the lungs cannot 
 perform their full amount of work, and the 
 liver is called on to help, with the result 
 that it cannot discharge its own functions 
 properly, and indigestion and dyspepsia are 
 the result. 
 
 Malaria is a great enemy and source of 
 danger to life, the natives suffering a great 
 deal from it, much more so in proportion 
 than Europeans. No doubt it is passed on 
 from natives to Europeans by mosquitoes. 
 Professor Ross, of the Liverpool School of 
 Medicine, is of opinion that malaria is con- 
 veyed almost entirely by mosquitoes ; and 
 that — if it is possible for Europeans to live 
 entirely apart from natives, keeping them at a 
 
i2 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 distance of fifty yards, and avoiding the neigh- 
 bourhood of stagnant pools and open cisterns 
 of every description — it is quite possible to 
 live in these tropical climates without the 
 least fear of malarial fever. We believe that 
 it will be found that a great source of danger 
 is the planting of bananas and Indian corn 
 near to the dwelling, as mosquitoes un- 
 doubtedly breed in such plants, which hold 
 a great deal of moisture. The worst form 
 of malaria, usually called black-water fever, is 
 apparently conveyed only by the mosquitoes 
 called Culexanopheles, and only the female 
 can convey it. She makes a feed of blood 
 during the breeding-season from a native or 
 other person infected with malaria, and then 
 injects the parasites into some other victim 
 from whom she makes a second meal. 
 
 These are not the only difficulties in the 
 way of colonisation. Insect enemies to plant 
 life and cultivation of cereals are very 
 numerous. Many experiments have ended 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 13 
 
 disastrously, but the British Administration 
 is making every effort to find out what pro- 
 ductions can most suitably be grown. It 
 seems at present as though the country called 
 East Africa, that is, east of the lake, is most 
 suitable for colonisation by Europeans, both 
 from a health point of view, and that of re- 
 muneration for their labours as planters, 
 though on the highlands of the Mau escarp- 
 ment, 7,000 feet, we have heard of cases of 
 mountain sickness. 
 
 The disease called sleeping sickness, which 
 has of late wrought such havoc amongst the 
 natives, is of a most distressing character. 
 It has been found that a parasite carried by 
 a species of tsetse fly which attacks human 
 beings is responsible for the disease. The 
 parasite was first found in the fluid sur- 
 rounding the spinal cord, hence the brain 
 is the first vital organ attacked. 
 
 Let us now take a look at Entebe. From 
 the steamer the place presents a very 
 
i4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 charming appearance, with its wealth of 
 foliage extending well to the water-edge, its 
 forest scenery, and the varied collection of 
 dwellings. Entebe is a long isthmus, and is 
 peopled chiefly by Europeans connected with 
 the Government, traders, Indians, and 
 Goanese. European traders have not, so 
 far, been a great success in Uganda, and 
 trade is, at present, mostly in the hands of 
 an enterprising Indian or two. From the 
 shore the view of the lake is equally pretty, 
 and one only regrets that it is not possible 
 to show these in their natural colours. 
 
 I need not describe in detail the Govern- 
 ment of Uganda. It will suffice to say that 
 at Entebe resides the representative of his 
 Majesty's Government. There are also a 
 number of sub-commissioners in charge of 
 districts, and a small army of clerks, ac- 
 countants, store-keepers, and mechanics, 
 numbering in all over one hundred, in 
 Uganda proper. 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 15 
 
 Uganda is a Protectorate, not a colony, 
 and has its own native parliament, which 
 makes all laws, subject to the approval of the 
 Commissioner. 
 
 Let us pass on, now, to Mengo. We can 
 go by cycle or on foot. There is an almost 
 level cycle road of some twenty-two miles 
 going round the hills, the eighteen-mile foot 
 road, as is usual in Uganda, going over the 
 top of them all, and making travelling very 
 laborious. 
 
 Arrived at Mengo, the traveller is always 
 much impressed by the great King's Road. 
 From the earliest recorded time the Baganda 
 have always had roads to the main centres 
 of their kingdom, and this road was made 
 entirely by the natives without any instruc- 
 tion from Europeans. The white line across 
 the top is the fence of the King's ' lubiri ' 
 (enclosure). 
 
 It may be asked, Where are the houses of 
 the natives, of whom more than 60,000 live 
 
 3 
 
1 6 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 in Mengo now ? They can rarely be seen 
 from the road, as the roads are bounded by 
 reed fences, and each house is surrounded 
 by a grove of plantains, banana, and wild 
 fig-trees. The reed fences are not sub- 
 stantial, and, latterly, most natives have taken 
 to making growing fences. It is only 
 necessary to cut off the branch of a tree, 
 or the upper half of the stem, stick it into 
 the ground, and with the first rain it takes 
 root and grows, so that a living fence is 
 the simplest thing to propagate. The poles 
 used to hold the telegraph wires in Usoga 
 and Uganda were saplings, which have 
 taken root and are now good growing trees. 
 Similar poles stuck into the ground as 
 table-legs occasionally take root and produce 
 leaves. 
 
 The ordinal*)- food of the natives is 
 plantains. The difference between plantains 
 and bananas is tantamount to that between 
 cooking and eating apples. In appearance 
 
HOW TO GET THERE 17 
 
 they are the same. Indeed, it is almost 
 impossible to tell the difference when seeing 
 a plantain and banana growing side by- 
 side. An idea of the taste of plantains 
 may be gathered by mixing together a 
 potato, a turnip, and an artichoke. They 
 are usually steamed in their own leaves, 
 and the natives who can get two meals a day, 
 at noon and at evening, are perfectly happy. 
 Some varieties are sweet, but the natives 
 do not care much for these. There are 
 also sweet bananas, of which the country 
 produces many excellent varieties, but they 
 are chiefly used for making beer, by squeez- 
 ing out the juice and fermenting it with millet 
 seeds, which the natives call ' mwembe,' 
 the beer thus made being called 1 mwenge.' 
 An unfermented kind is much drunk, and 
 is called ' mubisi,' but this turns sour in 
 the stomach if a quantity is drunk. They 
 grow a great quantity of sweet potatoes, 
 which they use chiefly in time of drought, 
 
1 8 UGANDA BY iPEN AND CAMERA 
 
 for the plantain and banana will only produce 
 fruit when supplied with plenty of moisture. 
 In addition they have a variety of vegetables 
 similar to spinach, marrow, beans, and peas 
 of an inferior quality. They eat meat when 
 they can get it, but most of them are too 
 poor to afford this indulgence often. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 
 
 Before going further we will introduce you 
 to the King of the country, Daudi Cwa 
 (pronounced Chwa; Daudi means David). 
 He is a son of Mwanga, and the grandson 
 of Mtesa. I must not pass over Mwanga, 
 the King's father. It will be remembered 
 that he ran away from his capital in 1897, 
 and, after spending a little time with the 
 Germans south of Uganda, escaped from 
 them. He finally joined King Kaberega, 
 his old Munyoro enemy, and they together 
 joined hands with the remnant of the Sou- 
 danese mutineers. In the end they were 
 captured by the troops of the Government, 
 and Mwanga, with Kaberega, was till 
 
 19 
 
2o UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 1903 a prisoner in the Seychelles Islands, 
 where he received an allowance of some 
 one hundred rupees per month from the 
 British Government. He wrote letters at 
 various times entreating his chiefs to pity 
 him and get him restored to his throne, but 
 could find no sympathy. The country on 
 the whole was only too glad to be rid of him, 
 though we know perfectly well there are 
 many who would have been very glad to 
 see him restored, and, with him, the old state 
 of things. Their hopes have, however, been 
 destroyed, as Mwanga died in the Seychelles 
 in May, 1903. He was born in 1866, and 
 was only eighteen when Mtesa died. Mtesa 
 appointed him as his successor. The eldest 
 son was not necessarily heir to the throne. 
 Each king was, as a rule, appointed by his 
 predecessor. Mwanga and Kiwewa were the 
 only two sons of Mtesa allowed out of prison. 
 All the. others were kept in captivity, so 
 that when the new king came to the throne, 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 21 
 
 he could easily put his brothers to death. 
 Mtesa always said that Mwanga was a most 
 gentle and obedient son. Apparently in 
 those days he was not the vicious character 
 he turned out to be later on, for he did not 
 kill his brothers when he ascended the throne. 
 Kalema, another brother, did, however, murder 
 his kinsmen. He had them all conveyed 
 to an island, or, rather, a raised piece of 
 land in Budo, some eight miles from Mengo, 
 around which he dug an enormous trench. 
 Across the trench was thrown a pole, which 
 served as a bridge to convey a very small 
 amount of food. When the poor wretches 
 were half starved he threw fire across, burn- 
 ing the grass huts in which they were living, 
 and as the inmates crawled out he shot at 
 them and killed them, some half-dozen in 
 all. Mwanga's later disposition was un- 
 doubtedly the result of the practice of 
 polygamy and other sins. 
 
 Daudi Cwa was born on August 8, 1896, 
 
22 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 and commenced to reign on August 14, 
 1897. King Daudi is a very nice little 
 boy, and is growing up, we trust, a good 
 Christian. He feels his position, and the 
 natives respect him very highly indeed, and 
 consider it a great honour to work for 
 the king. On anniversaries of his birthday, 
 and coronation day, a guard of honour of 
 Indian troops is usually sent up to his en- 
 closure, and the king is taken round by the 
 European official in charge of the district 
 to inspect the troops. He usually makes 
 on such occasions a feast for European 
 residents, for whom he prepares tables, knives 
 and forks, and as many civilised dishes as 
 he can muster. 
 
 The government is at present in the hands 
 of three regents appointed by the British 
 Administration, Apolo, the Katikiro (Prime 
 Ministerwho visited England), being the head ; 
 Zakaria Kizito, or Kisingiri, being the second, 
 and the third, Stanilas Mugwania, a Romanist. 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 23 
 
 These men have charge of the king until he 
 attains his majority at the age of eighteen years. 
 There is a native council of representatives 
 who constitute a sort of parliament, in which 
 all native laws are drawn up and then sub- 
 mitted for the approval of the commissioner, 
 and this council discusses affairs once a week 
 with an officer of the Administration. The 
 king presides over the council at times, and 
 always on state occasions sits on his chair 
 attired in his regal robes. Chiefs of high 
 rank may sit on a chair or a bench in the 
 council, but the majority sit on the ground, 
 which is always covered with a plentiful 
 supply of fresh grass. 
 
 In Mwanga's days, certainly up to 1888, 
 no one but Europeans dare sit on a chair in 
 his presence, and no native dare let it be 
 known that he had a chair in his possession. 
 One or two daring spirits tried this, but 
 their heads were cut off. When the king 
 visited any chief he was invariably shown 
 
24 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 into an empty room, which each chief always 
 kept for his visitors, so that they might not 
 cast covetous eyes on his belongings. One 
 chief possessed a stool, and one of his serfs 
 happened to sit on it. He was promptly 
 beheaded by his chief, who said that any one 
 sufficiently assuming to sit on his stool would 
 not be long before he was usurping his 
 position altogether, and was much better out 
 of the way. 
 
 Some idea of the state of society in the 
 king's palace may be gathered from the fact 
 that the king's mother (the Namasole) had 
 to be removed entirely from the palace, and 
 made to live in a separate house some two 
 miles away. Her character was of such a 
 nature, and she drank so immoderately, that 
 her influence was too bad for her young son. 
 He was in charge of an old nurse, but lately 
 all women servants have been expelled from 
 the enclosure, only men and boys being 
 allowed to serve the king. His education 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 25 
 
 is being attended to spiritually by Ham 
 Mukasa, who recently accompanied the 
 Katikiro to England, and his education in 
 general by two of the teachers trained in 
 the Boys' School, Mengo. He is learning 
 English, reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
 
 That the king appreciates the European 
 missionaries, and their friendly feeling to- 
 wards him, has been evinced by a curious 
 native custom which he has followed several 
 times. On one of these occasions he sent 
 his teacher with a garment to me with the 
 following message : ' The king has sent me 
 to salute you. He is sorry he cannot come 
 to see you himself, but, as he cannot, he 
 has sent you his shirt to wear for a few days, 
 and you are to think of his love for you when 
 wearing it ' ; and when going home on fur- 
 lough he gave me a pair of sandals, which 
 he took from his feet for that purpose. These 
 are the greatest marks of affection that can 
 be shown in Uganda. King Daudi is a very 
 
26 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 lovable, quiet little fellow, and there is 
 every hope that he will grow up a Christian 
 man. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that it is 
 earnestly hoped that Christians in England 
 will continually remember him in their 
 prayers, the influence of the king being so 
 very great in such a country. I would ask 
 the same for his cousin, who goes by the 
 title of the Queen-sister, who is shown here 
 being carried on a man's shoulders, the usual 
 mode of locomotion on great occasions, not 
 only for her, but for the king as well. She 
 was brought up in the C.M.S. mission school 
 as a Christian, but a recent disagreement 
 with the head chief on the question of her 
 fiance has resulted in her going over to the 
 French R.C. Mission. Her name is Yunia. 
 She does not live in the king's palace, though 
 she is a constant visitor there. 
 
 The Baganda are a very clever people, 
 intelligent, though with rather crude ideas 
 
y UNI A j DAUDI'S COUSIN, THE QUEEN-SISTER. 
 
 {Always carried shculder-high on State Occasions.) 
 
.1 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 27 
 
 on some points. On one occasion some 
 boys requested that a big tree close to the 
 house might be hewn down, because it made 
 the wind blow. They thought the rustling 
 of the leaves made the wind blow, instead 
 of vice versa. Another boy, seeing a number 
 of heads in an illustrated paper, asked why 
 they had all been beheaded. In his own 
 village, not long before, his chief had cut 
 off the heads of four or five men, and stuck 
 their heads on poles. The children used 
 to be taught that no other people existed 
 excepting the Baganda, the Basoga, the 
 Bakede, the Banyoro, the Batoro, and other 
 immediately surrounding nations. They 
 thought the horizon was supported by props, 
 just as they support their reed fences, 
 and that it was the outside edge of the 
 world. 
 
 The language is a very interesting one 
 to study. It is one of the Bantu group, and, 
 though very complete and very elastic in 
 
28 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 the formation of words, it is difficult to 
 introduce new ideas into it. 
 
 For a long time our missionaries have used 
 a word, ' enenya,' meaning 1 to repent,' 
 but one day, recently, in the class, an 
 intelligent evangelist said to the teacher : 
 ' The word you have just been explaining 
 to us does not at all mean what you think 
 it does. Let me explain to you the real 
 meaning of it. Supposing a man is going 
 along the road armed with a spear, and he 
 meets two men unarmed carrying bundles 
 of food. He spears one, and robs him of 
 his load. A few minutes afterwards he 
 thinks to himself, " How foolish I was to let 
 the other man escape ! I might have had 
 his load as well." He immediately follows 
 him, catches him up, spears him, and takes 
 his load too. Now, the regret that he felt 
 at not having killed the second man is 
 explained by the word " enenya," which can 
 hardly be said to mean " to repent." ' It 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 29 
 
 will thus be seen that it is very easy 
 indeed to make mistakes when learning a 
 new language. 
 
 Very stupid mistakes have often been 
 made by new residents. One lady showed 
 her servant some withered flowers, and said 
 to him, ' Bring me some flowers like these 
 from the garden.' In a few minutes the 
 boy returned with all the withered flowers 
 he could find, and said, ' These are all I 
 can find. All the others are in bloom.' 
 What the lady should have said was, ' Bring 
 me some flowers of this nature.' 
 
 Let us now turn to our mission station 
 in the capital, which is built on a hill called 
 Namirembe. Namirembe is one of many 
 names applied to parts of the capital. 
 Mengo is the name of the king's hill, and 
 from this the capital takes its name. Nami- 
 rembe is in the capital, and is merely the 
 name of the hill on which our mission station 
 is built. Kampala is the next hill, and is 
 
30 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 the name of the hill on which the govern- 
 ment station is erected. Nakasero is the 
 hill beyond, on which are the military- 
 quarters ; but the whole are in the capital. 
 
 Namirembe is 4,442 feet above sea level, 
 and on it is the cathedral of the C.M.S. 
 mission. Here reside Bishop Tucker, the 
 director of the C.M.S. in Uganda, Arch- 
 deacon Walker, secretary of the mission, 
 and several missionaries, including wives, 
 who train evangelists and teachers, conduct 
 the boys' and girls' school and various 
 Bible classes. 
 
 When it is remembered that the average 
 daily attendance at the classes is between 
 800 and 900 in Mengo, not to speak of 
 the 300 daily patients at the dispensary, 
 it will be seen that a large staff is re- 
 quired. Two leading native teachers are 
 also stationed here, who conduct classes 
 for the work of training and examining 
 candidates for baptism and confirmation. 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 31 
 
 The attendance on Saturdays is smaller, as 
 that is the day on which intending wor- 
 shippers at church on Sundays must wash 
 their clothes, not many people possessing 
 more than one suit. 
 
 On Saturday mornings are held the meet- 
 ings of the Church Council, which conducts 
 the business of the Church of Uganda. 
 
 On Monday, classes are not held. It is 
 the day on which all chiefs must visit the 
 king, and attend the native parliament 
 meeting. It is also the general time for 
 visiting. Some missionaries are able to 
 itinerate and conduct services on that day. 
 Others are busy seeing teachers in from 
 the country. Or, if time allows, they 
 make articles of household furniture, school 
 apparatus, and meet other requirements, for 
 in Uganda the amount of labour available 
 for such purposes is extremely limited. 
 A missionary, as a rule, has to be his own 
 boot-mender, carpenter, hair-dresser, and 
 
 4 
 
32 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 fulfil a great many duties of which he never 
 dreamed when he left England. Monday 
 also affords time for translational and other 
 language work which must be done. 
 
 The conditions of life are now becoming 
 much improved, and better houses are being 
 erected. The easiest plan, and the one 
 most usually followed, is to make a frame- 
 work of palm poles, which often have to 
 be carried eight to ten miles on men's heads 
 from the forests. Across these twigs and 
 sticks are tied on with the bark of a tree, 
 the space being filled in with mud. When 
 plastered this makes a very respectable wall, 
 which is whitewashed or yellow-washed with 
 a kind of chalky clay. 
 
 The roofs are thatched with grass, a work 
 at which the people are very skilful, but 
 at which they have some peculiar customs. 
 A thatcher will often be seen smoking a 
 pipe while putting on the grass, and if a 
 foreman or European comes upon him 
 
HOUSE-BUILDING BY .MISSIONARIES AND NATIVES. 
 I. BUILDING. 2. CARPENTERING. 3. THATCHING. 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 33 
 
 suddenly, he will push the lighted pipe in 
 amongst the thatch, at the risk of setting 
 fire to the whole structure. These grass 
 roofs ignite very readily, and unless the 
 ceiling of the rooms is thickly covered with 
 earth, it is almost an impossible feat to 
 rescue household furniture with the roof all 
 alight. If, however, an earth ceiling has 
 been provided, after the first blaze of the 
 grass, which usually expends itself in eight 
 to ten minutes, it is possible to get out 
 most of one's effects whilst the wood-work 
 smoulders. 
 
 Many missionaries have to do the greater 
 part of the carpentering for their homes, 
 and our illustration shows one of them so 
 employed. It is possible, sometimes, but 
 not always, to get native help. It must 
 not be supposed that house building must 
 needs be a work carried on without any 
 chance of preaching the Gospel, provided 
 that the missionary has learnt something 
 
34 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 of the language. As a matter of fact, no 
 work is more trying to the temper, or gives 
 more splendid opportunities of proving, by 
 a Christian demeanour under all circum- 
 stances, what a life influenced by the Gospel 
 is. Indeed, many workmen, finding the 
 missionary a kind master, so very different to 
 their own native overseers, are willing to 
 listen to the introduction of the Gospel. 
 
 I know one case of a man who had been 
 in touch with our missionaries ever since 
 there was a mission in Uganda. He had 
 always resisted every effort to get him to 
 read. But when helping to build a house 
 he was again invited to learn. He at last 
 yielded, received his first lessons during meal- 
 times, and is now reading for baptism, much 
 to the astonishment of his fellow natives, 
 who cannot understand his willingness to 
 begin after refusing for so many years. Let 
 no one think that manual labour is without 
 its opportunities of preaching the Gospel 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 35 
 
 We cannot remember too much or too often 
 that it is our lives, far more than our teach- 
 ing in a class, that the natives look at and 
 try to understand. We do, indeed, need 
 to be ' epistles known and read of all men.' 
 Angry words about some mistake by an 
 incapable workman often do serious harm, 
 and deter people from coming under the 
 influence of the Gospel. 
 
 The first thing the natives ask about a 
 missionary is, 'Is he a kind man ? ' or, as 
 they put it, ' Alina ekisa ? ' ('Has he 
 kindness?') If they are told that 'he has 
 kindness,' then they desire to come and 
 see him, and are willing to listen to his 
 teaching. But if he is announced to be a 
 man of 'busungu' (anger), people are immedi- 
 ately afraid of him, and take care to stay 
 away. 
 
 More substantial houses of sunburnt bricks 
 are now being built, and before long we 
 may hope to see corrugated iron roofs, which, 
 
36 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 though safer from fire, will not be nearly 
 so cool, grass roofs being very good noncon- 
 ductors of heat. It is almost impossible 
 to say what the heat is in the sun, but in 
 the shade of the verandah it rarely registers 
 more than 8o° to 85 0 , and inside the house 
 it is usually in the daytime 70° to 72°, 
 and at night in the house about an average 
 of 68°. It is rarely necessary to have a 
 fire, and few houses can boast of a fireplace. 
 Of course, no glass is used for windows. 
 It is difficult to wash the floors, as they are 
 only beaten earth, and the usual plan is to 
 smear them over with cow dung once in 
 every two or three weeks. This is a 
 necessity, not only to protect the floors and 
 to harden the surface, but also to keep down 
 the number of fleas and jiggers, which are 
 very plentiful in the country. The smearing 
 with cow dung appears to fasten them to 
 the floor. 
 
 The native word for jiggers is 'mvunza,' 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 37 
 
 probably taken from the Kiswahili word 
 ' mvunda ' (a maggot), or it may have been 
 derived from the Luganda ' kuvunda,' to rot, 
 the causative of which makes 1 kuvunza,' to 
 make to rot. These jiggers are very tiny 
 white fleas, so small as to be almost invisible 
 to the naked eye, though the natives can 
 see them on their black skins. They burrow 
 under the toe nail, or in the hard part of 
 the heel, and live there, until ejected with 
 the point of a needle ; and as the ejection is 
 an operation of considerable pain, the sufferer 
 often prefers to leave in the jiggers for a 
 time, in spite of the irritation caused. The 
 jigger lays a number of eggs in its home 
 in the foot, which, when ready for hatching, 
 fall out on to the ground, and are hatched in 
 the dust ; but the mother stays in the foot, 
 and causes serious ulcers, unless ejected. 
 
 Jiggers were first brought from the West 
 Indies to West Africa, crossed Uganda en 
 route to the east coast, but were not known 
 
38 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 in Uganda until 1892. They caused quite 
 a panic when they first arrived. Fifty 
 people at one chief s place died from the 
 effects of their invasions, and twenty at 
 another chief's place. The latter was Mika 
 Sematimba, who visited England some years 
 ago with Archdeacon Walker, and whose 
 figures can be taken as reliable. Many 
 people have lost toes through not attending 
 to the jiggers early enough. The blood 
 of the natives is such that the flesh readily 
 festers, and serious ulcers ensue. It is almost 
 impossible for Europeans to quite escape 
 the attacks of these pests, as they get on 
 to the bedding when hung out in the sun, 
 and burrow into the feet of the victim while 
 he is sleeping. 
 
 The house-work of Europeans is usually 
 performed by boys, who make very good 
 servants. They wash clothes and cook very 
 well, though at times they make curious 
 mistakes through ignorance. One cook, 
 
THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE 39 
 
 whose master was teaching in school, greatly 
 surprised him when he sat down to lunch. 
 He found that the cook, as he had not quite 
 sufficient greengages to fill up the pie dish, 
 had supplied the deficiency with onions, and 
 on being questioned, merely remarked, 
 * Well, sir, don't we use onions for almost 
 everything nowadays?' It is only lately 
 that onions have been procurable in any 
 quantity. 
 
 One needs to be extremely careful in 
 watching the culinary operations. Happily 
 it is possible, nowadays, to get a fair variety 
 of food, for most Europeans cannot wisely 
 attempt to live in native fashion, as the 
 health suffers, and the constitution is quickly 
 undermined. Fresh meat, chiefly goats' 
 flesh, is obtainable in markets in most of 
 the large centres daily. Beef sometimes ; 
 but it is not always advisable to buy beef. 
 The natives rarely sell their cattle for killing, 
 unless they fear they larejgoing to die of 
 
40 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 some disease, or unless a tough old bull is 
 quite useless for anything else but to be 
 killed and sold. It is possible to obtain 
 potatoes, and to grow or buy some English 
 vegetables, such as cabbages, cauliflowers, 
 carrots, and turnips, and food of all kinds 
 can be readily imported now. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 
 
 IT is a common thing with most travellers 
 in African countries to tell us that most 
 black races have no idea of a God or a 
 Supreme Being. This is quite a mistake ; 
 indeed, most races will be found to have a 
 belief in a Supreme God. Certainly the 
 Baganda have, and the word they use — 
 ' Katonda ' — for the Creator of the world is 
 the same word which is now used for God ; 
 for they believe that Katonda sent down 
 from heaven the inhabitants of the world. 
 
 Their story runs thus : In the beginning 
 Katonda told his son, Kintu, and his wife, 
 Namba, to come down into the world and to 
 bear children, who should be the inhabitants 
 
 41 
 
42 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 therein. He told them, ' When you go down 
 to the world to-morrow, get up early in the 
 morning, and slip away before your brother 
 Lumbe (that is, Death) knows you are going, 
 for if he knows he will go with you, and will 
 kill your children.' 
 
 They set off in the morning, but, having 
 travelled part of the distance, the wife said 
 to her husband, ' I have brought this fowl 
 with me, but I have left the Indian corn for 
 its food hanging up in the porch of the 
 house. I am going back to fetch it.' Kintu, 
 the husband, remonstrated with her, but in 
 vain. She went back, and just as she came 
 out of the house, after taking down the 
 bundle of corn hanging in the porch, she 
 encountered Death (Lumbe), who asked her 
 where she was going. On hearing that her 
 destination was the world, Lumbe said, 
 ' Well, I will accompany you.' He came 
 into the world with the first couple, and as 
 children were born to them, Lumbe put an 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 43 
 
 end to most of them. Hence the world is 
 so sparsely populated. 
 
 We must notice here a very remarkable 
 similarity between this story and our own 
 account of the Creation. Death is repre- 
 sented as coming into the world through the 
 disobedience of the woman. 
 
 The body, they say, can die ; but the spirit 
 cannot die. They have no idea, however, 
 that the spirit returns to the God who gave 
 it. What they believe is, that the spirit 
 remains somewhere near the body, and must 
 be attended to, just as when alive. Much 
 in the same way as the Chinese believe in 
 ancestral worship, so the Baganda take the 
 greatest care of the graves of their ancestors, 
 and pay attention to the wants of the spirits. 
 
 This is especially so with kings. As their 
 first king came down from heaven, they say 
 they must be divine, and so their spirits must 
 be worshipped, or if not actually worshipped, 
 special attention must be paid to them. As 
 
44 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 a result of this, when a king dies, his body- 
 is always buried in the floor of the house 
 in which he has been living. The old serfs 
 and servants who waited on him during his 
 lifetime remain in the house. Fresh grass is 
 spread on the floor, and they keep the place 
 clean, as they used to for the living king, and 
 the serfs and servants bring presents of food, 
 or money, or beer, or firewood to the spirit 
 — firewood because a fire must always be 
 kept burning, night and day, in honour of 
 the spirit. The head wife of Mtesa and the 
 queen-sister are both still living on the same 
 hill on which Mtesa is buried ; but, both 
 being Christians, they do not take the same 
 interest in keeping up the old rites as they 
 used to. So much is this the case, that the 
 fence around the enclosure is always more or 
 less in a state of disrepair. The interiors 
 of the tombs are usually decorated, with 
 spears and shields made of beaten brass, 
 copper, or iron, and decorated with coloured 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 45 
 
 cloths. A number of cloths and tusks of 
 ivory have usually been buried with the body 
 of a king. 
 
 Although near the capital these supersti- 
 tions are to some extent dying out, it is 
 not so in the country — for Uganda is by 
 no means Christianised throughout. An 
 instance of this is seen in our picture, which 
 represents the tomb of King Kamanya, the 
 grandfather of Mtesa. This is some eight 
 miles from Mengo, and it will be seen that 
 the house is quite a modern one. It has 
 only lately been erected, since the old 
 structure was destroyed by fire. It is a 
 house such as a chief of high rank lives in, 
 and has panelled shutters and doors. The 
 interior of the tomb has been decorated with 
 coloured printed cloths and white calico, and 
 the entrance is guarded by a door with bells 
 attached. The three old women sitting be- 
 side the door live inside the tomb, and keep 
 the fire burning there, as has always been 
 
46 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 done, and the pile of logs in the courtyard 
 had been brought by the old servants of the 
 king as an offering to the spirit. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this is alto- 
 gether the work of the heathen. The house 
 was built with the sanction of the Prime 
 Minister, who is a most earnest Christian, 
 and the decorations of the interior were 
 carried out under the supervision of Mbogo, 
 the chief Mohammedan prince, only in the 
 year 1902. It is an instance of how very 
 hard superstition dies, and how very much 
 popular feeling is against any change in the 
 old habits of the people — though probably 
 their superstition does not mean very much 
 more to some people than the nailing of a 
 horseshoe on the door of a barn. 
 
 One offering of especial value in the eyes 
 of the spirit used to be human blood, and 
 Mtesa offered 3,000 human beings in one 
 day as a sacrifice to the spirit of Suna, his 
 father. It is impossible to walk anywhere 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 47 
 
 for half a mile around the tree where this 
 sacrifice was offered without passing over 
 human bones, and it is only four miles from 
 Mengo. It is one of a great number of 
 similar trees in the country. 
 
 There was a universal belief in the Lubare, 
 or spirit ; but this Lubare was not one spirit, 
 but many. The chief spirit was that of the 
 lake, whose headquarters were probably the 
 island of Bukasa ; but there was also the 
 Lubare of thunder, of rain, of war, of sick- 
 ness, and, in fact, of almost everything. They 
 appear to believe that all these Lubare owe 
 their allegiance to the Divine Creator. Of 
 course there was no idea of love in their minds ; 
 in fact, no word meaning love exists in their 
 language. The word which we use for love 
 in our missionary teaching originally meant 
 ' to be fond of,' in the sense of animal love, 
 and the same word is used for ' to desire.' 
 
 The whole idea of the people connected 
 with the Lubare was, as is common with 
 
 5 
 
4 8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 most African races, that the Lubare acted 
 in the capacity of a private detective, always 
 trying to find out their crimes and punish 
 them for them. To propitiate the Lubare, 
 offerings were made at various shrines, 
 where lived the intermediaries between the 
 spirit and the natural worlds. These inter- 
 mediaries are called ' mandwas' ; but that the 
 people prayed to the spirit, or probably to 
 the Creator, is a fact. A common expression 
 after any good fortune has befallen a man, 
 and he has been shaken by the hand by his 
 friends and received their congratulations, 
 is to say, ' Webale kusaba,' which is, 
 ' Thank you for praying (for me).' The 
 origin of the expression had nothing what- 
 ever to do with Christianity ; it is merely a 
 relic of their own Lubare worship, and was 
 used to thank people for praying to the Lubare. 
 They prayed , and went to the ' mandwa ' 
 for advice in all their undertakings, such 
 as going to war, starting on a journey, and 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 49 
 
 even if they had no children. When a chief 
 built a house, that house was always dedicated 
 by the child of the ' sabadu ' being sacrificed 
 when the house was first entered after 
 completion. The ' sabadu ' was the head of 
 the household servants. 
 
 All the implements shown in the illus- 
 tration were used in connexion with spirit 
 worship. The long brushes like mops were 
 the property of an old witch called Tajuba, 
 who died very recently. These are made 
 of wood and cow-hide, and ornamented with 
 beads and cowrie shells, the tops being 
 feathers. They are really magic wands. 
 The head-dress to the left is of basket-work 
 and beads, and was donned by a medicine 
 man when visiting a sick patient. Sickness 
 was always attributed to some misdemeanour 
 on the part of the sufferer, the sickness 
 being the punishment inflicted by the Lubare. 
 The drum and shield were beaten or shaken 
 to drive away the spirit. The horns and 
 
50 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 charms in the front of the picture had great 
 magical value, and the shells and beads 
 to the right of the picture were used by 
 astrologers and fortune-tellers. The pack 
 of cards, called mgato,' nine in number, were 
 used very much in each ' kigwa 1 (house of 
 the 1 mandwa '). Each card is made of leather, 
 and is engraved with different patterns, and 
 these were shuffled and thrown down on 
 the ground, much as dice are thrown, and 
 the ' mandwa 5 was supposed to be able to tell 
 by the way they fell what would be the 
 future of the inquirer. Of course, for all 
 these affairs the ' mandwa ' demanded ex- 
 tortionate fees. The clay jar with the two 
 branches, in the middle of the picture, was 
 used in all human sacrifices, a liquid being 
 put in, which all victims were made to drink 
 of prior to being offered up. 
 
 A native came to me very recently and 
 begged for a present of cowrie shells, because 
 a 1 mandwa ' had threatened to bewitch him 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 51 
 
 if he did not produce a sum of money by 
 a certain time, and he was intensely afraid 
 of him. Natives often paid, and still pay, 
 enormous sums of money, as much as 20,000 
 or 30,000 cowrie shells, for a charm to hang 
 on their necks to protect them against spirits 
 and disease. In some parts of the country 
 the idea is prevalent that European mission- 
 aries have the power of bewitching people, 
 and I was told by a chief, only in 1902, 
 that whenever a missionary or a teacher 
 came into the village, the cry went round, 
 * Lay in a stock of water. The European 
 is coming to put medicine into the well to 
 change our hearts and to make us read 
 his religion.' For a long time people 
 thought that the missionary drank their 
 children's blood and ate the heart out of 
 their dead chiefs. In one instance a mission- 
 ary consented to have a building erected 
 over the tomb of a big chief, close to the 
 church, to prove to the people that he had 
 
52 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 not eaten the heart of the chief, and so 
 incensed the spirit, which they thought for 
 a long time was the case. 
 
 Several Europeans are buried in the 
 churchyard at Namirembe, and, as many 
 of these were Government officials, one 
 member of the Government sent up a sum 
 of money to keep these graves in repair. 
 A teacher was appointed to the task of 
 superintending the work, for which he was 
 paid. Many natives who had recently 
 joined the Church saw the teacher walking 
 about t over the graves and digging up the 
 weeds. He wanted assistance, but could 
 get no one to help him, as the bystanders 
 said he would be sure to incur the wrath 
 of the spirit by walking about on dead men's 
 graves, and that he would be sure to be 
 very ill before long. It was a curious co- 
 incidence that about a week after the teacher 
 was taken ill with fever. It was not by 
 any means for the first time, as fever is 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 53 
 
 extremely common amongst natives ; but a 
 great many people asserted that his sickness 
 was due to the fact that he had interfered 
 with the Europeans' graves, and he found 
 afterwards that it was quite impossible to 
 get any labourer to help him to look after 
 the burial-place. In the country districts, 
 and especially in Bunyoro and Busoga, a 
 little hut is the commonest form of spirit 
 worship, and this is why most travellers 
 say this is the only form of belief. This 
 hut, or shrine, is made of grass and twigs, 
 . and in it is hung a snail shell, or a broken 
 piece of pot is placed on the ground. Into 
 these receptacles is put every day an offering 
 of food or money, and unless this is con- 
 stantly kept up, it is believed that the 
 wrath of the spirit is sure to be incurred, 
 and drought or failure of the crops is sure 
 to be the result. 
 
 As specimens of the faces heathenism 
 produces, these wives of Suna will suffice. 
 
54 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 Suna was the father of King Mtesa, and 
 one can scarcely imagine more repulsive 
 features than the features of these two 
 women — features produced by the lives they 
 have lived. The one at the right hand of 
 the picture has for some time been trying 
 to read and to become a Christian, but it 
 is no light matter for such people to change 
 their old habits. Surely it was to such 
 people as these our Saviour was referring 
 when He said, ' Other sheep I have, which 
 are not of this fold. Them also I must 
 bring, . . . and they shall become one flock, 
 one shepherd.' He was speaking of such 
 as these when He said, ' Feed My lambs, 
 feed My sheep,' and to us is committed 
 the work of bringing these lost sheep into 
 His fold and giving them the Bread of 
 Life. 
 
 There is a popular misconception with 
 regard to the state of things in Uganda 
 when Stanley first visited the country. He 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 55 
 
 found King Mtesa a heathen, certainly ; but 
 he found also that some coast natives, 
 Swahilis or Arabs, had been in the country 
 for some time, and that Mtesa, seeing them 
 praying as Mohammedans, had been in- 
 quiring about the God to whom they prayed, 
 and about His laws, and had been introduced 
 to the Koran. He had been impressed with 
 the fact that this religion was a step in 
 advance of his own, and he had almost 
 decided to accept it. So much so, that he 
 had ordered all his important chiefs to be 
 taught by these men, and had even gone 
 so far as to order them to erect little mosques 
 in each of their courtyards, and had told 
 them that they and their people must become 
 Mohammedans. Some of them profess to 
 remain so now. Mtesa was in the position 
 of a man who was very thirsty. He longed 
 for something better than he had, and was 
 like thirsty souls in the desert, who arrive 
 at water, and are not very particular 
 
56 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 whether the water is quite pure or not. If 
 there is no better within reach, they will 
 drink the muddy water, and be thankful for 
 that. Hence Mtesa, until he heard of 
 Christianity, partly embraced Mohammedan- 
 ism ; but Mohammedanism in Uganda is 
 not what people imagine who read of it as 
 practised by Arabs and Persians. We know 
 many Mohammedans who never pray at all : 
 we know many who are drunkards. They 
 are only Mohammedans in name, and, were 
 our staff of missionaries sufficiently great, it 
 would not be long before there would be 
 no more even so-called Mohammedans in 
 Uganda, for they are not bigoted, as people 
 suppose. They chiefly hold to that faith 
 because it allows polygamy and a great deal 
 of licence in other respects which Christianity 
 forbids. 
 
 As is common with most African races, 
 women are looked upon as slaves. They 
 are made to provide food for the family, to 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AMD MORALS 57 
 
 cultivate the garden, often to help clean the 
 roads, to fetch all the firewood, to carry the 
 water from the well, and, in fact, do all the 
 drudgery of the house. The woman in our 
 illustration, carrying firewood, had a load 
 weighing over one hundredweight, which she 
 had collected in the forests and carried some 
 four miles to her home. 
 
 The increase in the population in Uganda 
 is very small, not because the birth-rate is 
 small, but because the death-rate is almost 
 equal to it. It is difficult to say what is the 
 proportion of infants' deaths ; probably some- 
 thing more than eightyper cent, of the children 
 die before they reach the age of ten years. 
 This is partly due to the climatic conditions, 
 partly to malaria, partly the results of the 
 evil lives of their ancestors, but a great deal 
 is due to neglect on the part of the mothers, 
 who seem not to know how to rear their 
 children. The very first thing that happens 
 to a child within an hour of its birth is to 
 
58 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 take it outside the house, put it on a plantain 
 leaf, and wash it in cold water ; it is then 
 smeared over with butter. Most of the 
 women grow and smoke their own tobacco, 
 which is probably indigenous to the country. 
 It grows very readily indeed, and is of 
 good flavour. 
 
 A man desiring marriage has no thought 
 of love in the matter. He simply makes a 
 bargain with the chief or father of the object 
 of his choice, and has to promise exactly 
 what he will pay as a wedding portion, 
 generally £2 to ^3, the amount being much 
 greater for chiefs, who can afford to pay. 1 
 He has also to state what presents of 
 clothing he will give his wife and her parents, 
 and to specify the exact amount of food and 
 beer he will provide for the marriage feast, 
 before he can obtain his wife. After 
 marriage, if he should offend his wife, it 
 
 *A recent effort has been made to limit the sum to Rs.io 
 ( = 135. 4^.) for non-chiefs. 
 
THE OLD RELIGION AND MORALS 59 
 
 is a common thing for her to leave him, go 
 back to her father or her old chief ; and the 
 husband has to appear to answer to the 
 charges laid against him by her, and pay a 
 fine in accordance with the enormity of 
 the offence. As the fine goes to the father 
 of the wife, of course she is not allowed 
 to return until the fine is paid. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 
 
 When one considers the state of the 
 Church in Uganda at the present 
 day, it is difficult to realise that it was only- 
 thirty years ago, that is to say, in the 
 year 1875, that Sir H. M. Stanley first 
 visited Uganda, and was told by King 
 Mtesa that he would like to have missionaries 
 sent to his country. Our illustration will 
 help us the better to realise this, for the man 
 sitting on the chair is one of the first six 
 men, or as they were then, boys, selected by 
 King Mtesa to read with the first mission- 
 aries, Mackay and Smith, who did not arrive 
 
 there till 1877 anc * 1878, roughly speaking, 
 
 60 
 
CHIEF MUKUBNKWATA AND HIS SON, TWO OF MACKAV's PUPILS. 
 THE REV. HENRY WRIGHT DUTA, WITH WIFE AND FAMILY. 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 61 
 
 twenty-seven years ago. The next picture 
 shows Henry Wright Duta, or, as he is 
 generally known by the natives, Kitakule, 
 another of the first six, and these two men 
 have been constant readers ever since. Still 
 another of that early band is living in the 
 neighbourhood of Ngogwe, some thirty-four 
 miles from Mengo. Since then great changes 
 have passed over the land. One now never 
 hears the drum being beaten to call people 
 to war, nor is the drum heard announcing 
 that a human sacrifice is about to be offered, 
 and victims are being caught on the roads. 
 In place of these are the drums beaten every 
 morning calling people to worship in the 
 House of God. There are scattered through- 
 out Uganda over 1,100 churches, all con- 
 nected with the Church Missionary Society. 
 In these churches 5 2,000 worshippers assemble 
 every Sunday, and probably half that number 
 day by day come for reading and for instruc- 
 tion. It is not that the people had no other 
 
62 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 interests, for up to the year 1898 there 
 was invariably a war going on somewhere, 
 in which the Baganda were implicated. 
 People almost always date their birthdays 
 and other special events by saying, * It 
 happened in the year of such and such 
 a war.' 
 
 The cathedral at Namirembe has been 
 erected entirely at the cost of the natives, 
 who have already expended considerably 
 over ^400 on it, and are doing still more. 
 , When the brick church was first suggested 
 the natives held a council, and it was de- 
 cided how much each member of the Church 
 could afford to pay. All agreed that they 
 would pay the share considered to be their 
 due, and the money was very quickly pro- 
 mised, to the amount of over £joo. It must 
 be borne in mind that the Baganda are poor 
 people ; not one of the chiefs could be called 
 really wealthy. This church is built of brick, 
 and the inside of the roof very beautifully 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 63 
 
 decorated with reeds, the sewing on of which 
 is marvellous. The roof is thatched with 
 grass. It was found to be impossible to get 
 sufficient level timber for such a big structure, 
 and so it could not be covered with corru- 
 gated iron, there being no saw-mills in the 
 country. Corrugated iron roofing cannot be 
 used unless all the timbers are perfectly- 
 true. 
 
 The church will seat over 2,000 people ; 
 the men, according to custom, sitting down 
 one side, and the women down the other. It 
 is cruciform in shape, and is 220 feet 
 long by 50 feet wide in the nave, the 
 transepts each extending 50 feet beyond 
 this. As a pleasing contrast to the old con- 
 dition of things, when 3,000 victims were 
 offered as sacrifices to the spirit of the king 
 in one day, on the first Christmas Day after 
 the opening, the number of people attending 
 divine worship in this cathedral was 3,000. 
 More than 500 of these could not gain 
 
 6 
 
64 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 admittance, but sat outside the open doors, 
 a common occurrence in Uganda, the doors 
 and windows, on account of the heat, never 
 being closed. This is very convenient for 
 people with bad colds, who do not wish to 
 disturb their fellow-worshippers. Of the 
 3,000, some 101 9 stayed to Holy Communion, 
 and the collection was over £7 sterling. 
 Much of this was undoubtedly offered by the 
 chiefs ; but it must be remembered that the 
 wages of a labouring man are only, roughly 
 speaking, \\d. a day — that is, one hundred 
 cowrie shells, which vary in value very 
 considerably, and were at the time about 
 eighty-eight to a penny. 
 
 Services had been held in the cathedral 
 previous to this, the formal opening, when 
 Bishop Tucker returned to Mengo early in 
 December ; but the first service of all was 
 held whilst the church was still building. 
 That was on June 26, the proposed coro- 
 nation day of King Edward VII., for 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 65 
 
 we did not hear until eleven o'clock on that 
 day that the coronation had been postponed. 
 Our service was held at eight o'clock in 
 the morning (about half-past five, English 
 time), when the church was crowded to 
 excess, an equal number of worshippers 
 being seated in the churchyard, having 
 failed to gain admittance. Altogether there 
 were some 5, 000 people present, and our 
 next illustration shows this congregation 
 dispersing. 
 
 Collections in these churches are always 
 interesting, and are chiefly taken up in cowrie 
 shells, which, though very bulky, it would 
 seem at present are indispensable. The 
 people willingly bring their offerings, and the 
 money collected is used to pay native evange- 
 lists and pastors (of whom there are con- 
 siderably more than 2,000) sent out year by 
 year into the country districts. No English 
 money is used to pay these men, nor is 
 any money from the C.M.S, ever used to 
 
66 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 pay for church building, or, indeed, for any- 
 Native Church expenses. If the Church in 
 Uganda is to be a living Church, it must 
 realise that it must pay all its own expenses, 
 that it is the Church of the country, and 
 not a Church to be supported by English 
 funds. 
 
 Just a word or two in passing about the 
 cowrie shell currency. There are great 
 numbers of Indian rupees and pice in the 
 country, which are being largely used ; but 
 the natives must have something of a very 
 small value. For instance, a man can buy 
 sufficient tobacco for the day for one or two 
 cowrie shells, of which, say, twenty-two go to 
 a farthing, or if he wants a meal of bananas 
 or plantains he can buy sufficient for five 
 cowrie shells. He could not, therefore, 
 afford to pay one pice for these commodities, 
 as one pice equals a farthing. The Govern- 
 ment sacrificed some .£7,000 sterling by 
 burning cowries to the amount, some time 
 
i. congregation leaving mengo cathedral. 
 
 2. COUNTING THE COLLECTION. 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 67 
 
 ago, to try and get rid of the shells, but so 
 far they have found it an impossibility to 
 prevent their use. The natives like them 
 because they can hang the strings round 
 their necks, or hang them up in their houses. 
 Having no pockets, they find small coins a 
 great difficulty, and when they get home, 
 where there are no cupboards, and no means 
 of storing the coins, excepting on their bed- 
 steads, they are constantly dropping the 
 coins about and getting them lost amongst 
 the grass on the house floor, which is often 
 very thick indeed. 
 
 Although I am not dealing at length 
 with the difficulties and drawbacks attending 
 the work of the Mission, it is not, of course, 
 to be supposed that there are none. Where 
 is the Church which is not attended by many 
 drawbacks and many downfalls, and does 
 not own many disappointing members ? If 
 you visit our prison-yards in Uganda you 
 will find among the prisoners men who call 
 
68 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 themselves Christians ; but if you visit 
 prison -yards in England you will find pre- 
 cisely the same thing. People at home are 
 very illogical, and when they hear that a 
 native Christian has fallen into sin they are 
 very ready to exclaim, 'What! a Christian 
 in Uganda to fall away and commit a sin 
 of that nature ? ' whilst they altogether forget 
 that it is not Christianity which keeps many 
 so-called Christians in England from falling 
 into sin, but, to a very large extent, public 
 opinion and the fear of exposure. It would 
 seem that a very much larger proportion of 
 people are deterred from sin because of 
 their friends than the number of those 
 who can say, with Joseph, 1 How can I 
 do this great wickedness and sin against 
 God?' 
 
 The difficulty nowadays in Uganda is 
 that the railway has made it possible for 
 a great many adventurers to come up, 
 prospectors and traders. Many of these 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 69 
 
 are Indians and Goanese, 1 and the example 
 of some, I might say many, is not at all 
 conducive to steadfastness and morality among 
 the Baganda. Nor is the example of some 
 Englishmen what it ought to be, considering 
 that they come from Christian England. 
 The same must be said with regard to 
 some of the Germans. I have heard 
 it observed by the native Christians of 
 several Europeans, 4 Why should we be 
 compelled to have such men sent up here? 
 We have no men amongst ourselves who 
 would live worse lives than these men 
 live.' 
 
 These points are of the more importance 
 because we are in the midst of a time 
 of testing and trial. The fact that the 
 country has been re-divided under the 
 
 1 Goa is a Portuguese colony on the west coast of India, 
 some distance north of Bombay, and the Portuguese, having 
 intermarried with Indians, have produced a race of half- 
 castes, who are usually called Goanese. Many of them 
 are professing Roman Catholics. 
 
70 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 terms of the new treaty has greatly upset 
 all our congregations. Chiefs and their 
 followers having been removed en masse 
 to different parts of the country, and now 
 a man no longer becomes a Christian 
 because his chief is a Christian, for he 
 need no longer remain the servant of a 
 chief unless he wishes to do so, and there 
 is not nearly so much to be looked for in 
 the way of position as there used to be 
 when a man became a Christian. The 
 young Church of Uganda, started only 
 twenty-nine years ago, needs very much 
 prayer at the present time, that it may 
 not fall away from its first love. 
 
 It must be remembered that it is prac- 
 tically only since 1890 that any settled 
 work has been done ; for in all the early 
 part of Mwanga's reign it was impossible 
 to tell for two days at a time what attitude 
 he would adopt towards the Church, and 
 I need not say that his attitude was chiefly 
 
THE WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES 71 
 
 that of a hinderer. One of the most pleasing 
 features of the work in Uganda now is 
 the great desire the people are showing 
 for furthur education. For a long time 
 the Christian natives have felt that there 
 was something for them beyond what they 
 had already learned, and, over and over 
 again, leading men such as Henry Wright 
 Duta and Bartolomayo Musoke had begged 
 Bishop Tucker and Archdeacon Walker, 
 the secretary of the Mission, and others 
 on the staff to commence schools other 
 than those for Scripture alone. The limited 
 staff at the disposal of the Bishop did 
 not allow of this until after the year 1897. 
 Early in the year 1898 schools were started 
 in Mengo and one or two other centres 
 on a very small scale, and these have 
 been since developed. The natives come 
 for instruction, not because they are com- 
 pelled to do so, but because they enjoy 
 coming, and no severer punishment can 
 
72 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 be inflicted on the older scholars than to 
 forbid them coming to school for a week 
 or two, until they learn better behaviour ; 
 though cases of insubordination are very- 
 rare. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 
 
 I propose to speak more especially of 
 the school in Mengo, with which we 
 have had most to do. One of our 
 pictures shows an infants' class learning to 
 read the alphabet. It sounds to a new- 
 comer rather a noisy performance to have 
 one pupil calling out the name of a letter, 
 and all the class repeating it after him, 
 but it is not disturbing to the native ear. 
 Many of our children can read extremely 
 well by the time they are six or seven 
 years of age, and it is a curious thing 
 that most children can read with the book 
 turned upside down or sideways, just as 
 
 73 
 
74 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 well as if they were reading properly. The 
 reason for this is that in country districts, 
 where most of the children reside for at 
 least a part of the year, reading is usually 
 taught from the small reading-book called 
 the Mateka, and, as the children are very 
 poor, only the teacher possesses a copy. 
 This he holds for his own convenience 
 the right way up, but as his pupils sit 
 round him in a semicircle they look on 
 the book inverted or sideways, with the 
 result that they learn to read in these 
 ways as they change their position day 
 by day, and later on, when they possess 
 a book of their own, they hold it in the 
 proper way. 
 
 This habit is often a great convenience, 
 for, in church, if a man has not a hymn- 
 book, but the worshipper standing behind 
 him has one, he simply turns right round, 
 looks the man behind him in the face, 
 deciphers his hymn-book upside-down, and 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 75 
 
 sings the hymn. It saves some trouble 
 in passing books about. 
 
 As soon as children can read they are 
 taught the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's 
 Prayer, the Ten Commandments, a number 
 of Gospel texts, and then they are taken 
 on to St. Matthew's and St. John's Gospels. 
 They next have to learn a very long 
 catechism, and must pass a stiff examination 
 in all these subjects before they can be 
 baptized, unless, of course, they are the 
 children of Christian parents, and so baptized 
 in infancy ; but even then, before they can 
 be confirmed they must know the subjects 
 mentioned, with the addition of the Gospel 
 of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. 
 In all our schools our first object is, of 
 course, being missionaries, to give the 
 children a really good, Scriptural education. 
 From 8 to 9.30 a.m. the teaching is wholly 
 Biblical, commencing with Scriptural repeti- 
 tion, followed by an address to the school 
 
76 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 on one of a series of topics. Then comes 
 the breaking up into small classes for teach- 
 ing, reading, and for Scriptural exposition. 
 The teaching of reading is always carried on 
 in the Bible only. Our illustration shows 
 the head Bible class in the boys' school 
 at Mengo, from which class teachers are 
 taken for all the junior classes, as only one 
 European is in charge of the school, and 
 the number of boys for the Scriptural part 
 averages two hundred. 
 
 Taking a Bible class in Uganda is very 
 interesting work, for one always feels that 
 the pupils are there, not merely as readers, 
 but as students. I think the best way of 
 showing the intelligence of the pupils is 
 to give in detail a few of the questions which 
 have been asked by members of this class. 
 
 A small boy of eleven, when we were 
 reading the story of the Flood, asked, ' Sir, 
 it says here that Noah took two animals of 
 each kind into the ark, and that he brought 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 77 
 
 them out again, and that of them was the 
 whole earth overspread. It says again that 
 he took food for all animals ; now, if he only 
 took two in, and he brought two out, not 
 counting the sacred animals, on what did he 
 feed lions and leopards and dogs, which only 
 eat flesh ? ' The one reply to such a ques- 
 tion was, ' We cannot tell ; but it says that 
 Noah took food for all the animals, hence we 
 must assume that he took food suited to each 
 kind of animal.' 
 
 They not only want to know such things 
 as these, but they want to know a great 
 many details which cannot always be 
 supplied. For instance, one boy asked, 
 ' Who took the seven baskets of food left 
 over after the miracle of feeding the five 
 thousand on the mountain ? Did the people, 
 or did the disciples ? ' And again, ' What 
 was the boy's name out of whom the dis- 
 ciples could not cast out the devil at the 
 foot of the hill, after the Transfiguration ? ' 
 
78 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 Again, a teacher was asked, ' What kind of 
 oil did the Good Samaritan put on the man's 
 wounds?' In another case, when they 
 got to the passage, 'As He spake by the 
 mouth of His holy prophets, which have 
 been since the world began,' and it was 
 mentioned that Adam was really the first 
 prophet, the pupil replied, ' Well, I agree 
 to that, but it puzzles me to understand who 
 he prophesied to before Eve was created, 
 and yet it says, " since the world began." ' 
 
 If a teacher goes unprepared to a class in 
 Uganda, he will probably regret it before 
 he is through his lesson, for the natives do 
 not believe in passing over a passage because 
 it is difficult. They want to know all that 
 it is possible to find out about the Word of 
 God, and if at times the teacher cannot 
 answer the question, the interrogator usually 
 says, ' Well, never mind now ; go on with 
 the lesson, and when you have finished I 
 will go home with you, and perhaps you 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 79 
 
 will look it up in your books and tell me 
 what they say about it.' Even if they do 
 not say this, it usually happens that you 
 will find the boy sitting outside the door 
 shortly after you reach home, and on in- 
 quiring as to his business, he says, ' I am 
 just come down to ask if you will please 
 explain from your books what I asked you 
 about in school.' 
 
 The intelligence of the Baganda is quite 
 equal to that of Englishmen ; it is only a 
 question of training. They learn to write 
 in an incredibly short space of time, whilst 
 they stick at and master arithmetic in a way 
 that many Englishmen would be pleased 
 to copy. From 9.30 to 10.30 we have, 
 in Mengo Boys' School, a very large increase 
 in our attendance, youths and men from 
 other Bible classes swelling our number to 
 450, 500, 540. The daily average is 450 
 from Tuesday to Friday, on Saturday there 
 are not so many. Some thousands have 
 
 7 
 
8o UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 been taught writing and arithmetic at this 
 school. 
 
 Arithmetic we take as far as vulgar frac- 
 tions and percentages, which will enable the 
 lads who desire to become Government 
 clerks to transfer Indian coinage into sterling, 
 cowrie shells into Indian currency, and so on. 
 It proves a source of astonishment to many 
 people to see how smart the boys are in 
 working out very difficult examples after 
 very short periods of teaching, many lads 
 in two years' time having gone from simple 
 addition to very difficult vulgar fractions. 
 
 English is taught to boys specially selected 
 by the Church Council as likely to benefit 
 by it and be a credit to the Mission. We do 
 not want to teach English to boys who 
 are only Christians in name. They might 
 go off as servants to Government men, 
 saying that they know English, and have been 
 taught in C.M.S. mission schools, inferring 
 thereby that they are Christians and honest, 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 81 
 
 and yet proving by their lives that they are 
 neither Christians nor honest, and thus be- 
 coming a reproach to the Mission. We do 
 not want to Anglicise the people at all, but we 
 believe it is necessary to teach a number of 
 them English ; indeed, the Mission has been 
 specially requested by the Administration 
 to teach English in their schools. There 
 is work for this people. God has some 
 special purpose in view in having raised up 
 the Baganda in the middle of Africa to take 
 such an interest in the Gospel. It would 
 seem that this object is, that they should 
 become missionaries to all the surrounding 
 nations. 
 
 This, indeed, the Baganda are quite willing 
 to be, and have already been so to a limited 
 extent ; but before they can rule and govern 
 their own Church, and learn how to make it 
 self-supporting, self-governing, and self-ex- 
 tending, there must be some well-educated 
 men amongst them. It is neither necessary 
 
82 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 nor advisable that all the literature they 
 ought to have access to should be translated 
 into their own language, and the simpler plan 
 appears to be to teach a number of them 
 English, and let them have access to our 
 stores of literature. Then, again, there is 
 every reason why those books which need 
 translating into Luganda should be done by 
 the natives ; for no matter how good an 
 Englishman may be at the language, he can 
 never hope to attain to such proficiency in 
 idiom as a native. It is always difficult for 
 an Englishman to think as a native thinks, 
 and to look at things from the same stand- 
 point. The whole up-bringing of the white 
 man is against it. Again, before they can 
 become missionaries, natives must know 
 something of the formation of a language, as 
 it would be necessary in many of the sur- 
 rounding countries to reduce the languages 
 to writing. Many of the languages spoken 
 near the Nile are entirely different from 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 83 
 
 Luganda in formation, not being Bantu 
 languages at all ; and it is necessary to show 
 the Baganda that all languages are not 
 founded on the same principles as their own. 
 
 Afternoons in school have been devoted 
 chiefly to elder scholars and intending pupil 
 teachers, and a variety of subjects have been 
 taught — Scriptural and general knowledge, 
 including a little geography, astronomy, 
 physiology, anatomy, and so on — all useful 
 in expanding the native mind. At home, in 
 the evenings after school, we have had pupil 
 teachers, and given short Bible expositions, 
 with very profitable results. 
 
 It is always a pleasure to missionaries to 
 receive visits from their young pupils, and to 
 receive trifling presents of a few coffee beans, 
 or a few eggs, or a fowl, not for the value 
 of the things received, but as an assurance 
 that the pupils have regard for them, and 
 that the affections are being won. The 
 Baganda are naturally unselfish, and many 
 
8 4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 instances of this are afforded. When 
 children come to the house they do not 
 care for sweets, but if you will give them 
 a little salt in the palm of their hand they 
 thoroughly enjoy eating it. Yet never 
 will you see one of a group eat all his 
 salt. He invariably passes it round, for all 
 his companions to have a taste with him. 
 On one occasion a child who had received 
 a slate pencil in response to his request, 
 made the remark, ' Oh ! I did not think 
 you would give me a whole one ; but, now 
 you have, I can break it up into five pieces 
 and give each of my little friends here a 
 piece,' which he immediately did. 
 
 The next illustrations will show what a 
 variety of scholars we have to deal with. 
 The boys at the back, though tall, are 
 not so old as might be imagined. In 
 tropical countries everything grows quickly, 
 and boys of seventeen are practically men. 
 Many of these older ones have been coming 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 85 
 
 to school a far shorter time than the 
 younger ones, and, in many cases, know 
 less. They are being trained, some as 
 teachers, some as clerks, or store-keepers, 
 for the most part for chiefs, but some few- 
 intend to try for situations under the Ad- 
 ministration. Some are drafted oft" to our 
 Industrial Mission, and are taught trades. 
 Many of them, some only 10 or 12 years 
 of age, hold important chieftainships, and 
 will be great men in the country in a few 
 years' time. For them especially we would 
 ask much prayer, that they may learn to 
 rule their people in a Christ-like way. 
 
 The old man of sixty and the young 
 boy of three both began to read about the 
 same time, though the old man has made 
 far quicker progress than the child. One 
 of the most pleasing features of work in 
 Uganda is to see the way each one wants 
 to hand on to some other what he himself 
 has been taught. It is probable that, to 
 
86 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 some extent, this is the outcome of vanity, 
 and a desire to show off; but it is to a 
 far greater extent, in many cases, a desire 
 to do something to show the love they 
 have for their Saviour, when once they 
 realise His love for them. 
 
 When Christ restored sight to the blind 
 and performed other miracles, we are told 
 that those receiving benefit desired to follow 
 Him and to serve Him ; and this is so in 
 Uganda. When a Buganda has received 
 his sight and come out of darkness into 
 light, as a rule, he desires to show his 
 faith by his works. This has been especially 
 marked in the way in which our attendance 
 has increased in the school. In the early 
 days we noticed an increase of more than 
 a hundred after one Christmas holiday, 
 and we found that many pupils had spent 
 most of their holidays in telling others of 
 what they had learned, with the result 
 that their hearers were induced to come to 
 
AT SCHOOL AT MENGO 87 
 
 school with them on their return. A most 
 pleasing sight it was, in two instances, to 
 see fathers sitting in a class being taught 
 writing and arithmetic by their own sons, 
 aged respectively twelve and seventeen, the 
 fathers not considering it at all infra dig. 
 A boy teaching an old man to read, and 
 explaining to him difficult passages in the 
 Gospel, is always a pleasing picture, and 
 one always feels full of joy to see the lads 
 so willing to pass on to others the teaching 
 one has been privileged to impart to them. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 
 
 Whilst it is not possible to describe in 
 detail the work throughout the 
 country, I can at least give an outline of 
 the daily work of missionaries. 
 
 The country could not be called tropical 
 as a whole, but scenery in most of the valleys 
 is certainly so, as there is a plentiful supply 
 of moisture and constant heat. Aerial loco- 
 motion would be a great boon to Uganda, 
 for roads are a difficulty. To main centres 
 there are, indeed, roads, the bridges of which 
 are usually kept in repair ; but most of our 
 missionaries must travel a great deal to get 
 to country churches in villages, which often 
 lie considerably off the beaten track. 
 
 88 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 89 
 
 Although it is probably a fact that the 
 country of Uganda is almost on a dead level, it 
 is, nevertheless, very hilly, a good proportion 
 of its surface being covered with short lumpy 
 hills, and the valleys between these are 
 almost invariably swamps or rivers. The 
 rivers usually become swamps because the 
 incline of the land is so gradual that the water 
 cannot flow away quickly enough, and often 
 spreads over a large area. 
 
 It is an easy matter to bridge over these 
 shallow rivers, excepting in the stronger part 
 of the stream. The usual plan in making 
 a bridge is to beat down the grass and reeds, 
 or the papyrus stems, and to throw on a 
 lot of loose earth, which is kept in position 
 by a double reed wall, very fragile indeed, 
 and easily washed away by one severe 
 storm. The stronger part of the stream, 
 usually not more than a few feet in width, 
 is bridged over with the stems of palms, 
 but when the river rises, after a heavy fall 
 
9 o UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 of rain, these palm poles are often washed 
 away, and it becomes a somewhat difficult 
 matter to cross. The larger rivers present 
 a greater difficulty, as the natives have, so 
 far, learnt nothing of permanent bridging. 
 Their usual plan is to beat down the stem 
 of the papyrus, which floats on the top of 
 the water, the roots growing together as 
 if locked, and over these to throw a few 
 sticks or twigs, making a floating bridge, not 
 too safe, but affording a means of crossing. 
 
 The animals, birds, insects, and reptiles 
 to be found in the streams and forests supply 
 any amount of material for any number of 
 entomologists, zoologists, ornithologists, and 
 bacteriologists. 
 
 There are snakes of every description ; 
 many of them non-poisonous, and all anxious 
 to get out of the way of human beings. But 
 the snakes make their way into houses, gener- 
 ally in search of rats and lizards, upon which 
 they feed, and one does not feel too comfort- 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 91 
 
 able, when, as in the case of a missionary, a 
 snake lives in a hole under his writing-table. 
 He knew it must be there, though never saw 
 it. The only proof was, that annually the 
 snake slipped out of its skin and left the 
 discarded skin in the room, and this happened 
 year after year. 
 
 The python is known in Uganda, so, too, 
 is a snake in the north, of which the natives 
 tell us, but which appears, so far, to be 
 unknown to zoologists. The native story 
 is, that it does not crawl along the ground ; 
 that it is much longer than a python, and 
 rears itself up when walking to a height of 
 eight or ten feet ; that it makes a great noise 
 as it pushes its way through the grass ; that 
 it does not consume its victims as the python, 
 but chews the flesh, as a dog does. We 
 have only native evidence for this. 
 
 Mice and small rats are innumerable ; as 
 are lizards. They infest houses of natives 
 and Europeans alike. The presence of so 
 
92 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 many rats, which can only be kept down 
 by a cat or by having snakes on the premises 
 — the latter not a pleasant precaution — is 
 sometimes a source of amusement as well 
 as annoyance. On one occasion a missionary, 
 travelling in a recently opened-up district 
 and sleeping in a temporary house, built of 
 grass and reeds, according to custom put 
 his false teeth on a box at the side of his 
 bed. When he awoke in the morning he 
 looked for his teeth, but they were 
 not to be found. After hunting all over 
 the premises for nearly an hour, he at last 
 discovered them at the top of a rat-hole, 
 down which they would undoubtedly have 
 been dragged, but that the hole was too 
 small to admit the palate. The rats evidently 
 thought that they had found a new kind of 
 food. 
 
 The number of jumping creatures it is 
 impossible to count. They vary in size 
 from the jigger, smaller than a flea, up to 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 9 3 
 
 a locust. It is quite impossible to attempt 
 to keep the house free from them, and one 
 hears a constant flip, flip, as they jump about 
 in the room. There are numbers of spiders, 
 some of which appear to have no body at 
 all, and others with big bodies and big eyes, 
 quite different from anything one has ever 
 seen in England. There are beetles of 
 every size imaginable, from the smallest 
 ladybird to beetles as large as ones fist. 
 
 The larger animals dangerous to life, lions 
 and leopards, are very plentiful in most parts, 
 but are not often found near to the main 
 centres. Down in the south, in the country 
 of Ankole, lions abound. The people have 
 great herds of cattle, and the lions come 
 round almost every night and try to steal 
 them. The natives are not at all afraid of 
 these beasts, and rarely attempt to spear 
 them or to fire a gun. If they did, and they 
 wounded the lion, they would probably get 
 the worst of the fight. They have found 
 
94 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 by experience that the simpler plan is to 
 hit the lion a blow with a stick, of which 
 the king of beasts is just as much afraid as 
 is a terrier dog, and he runs away immediately 
 with his tail between his legs. The lion 
 is by no means the brave animal he is usually 
 supposed to be, though dangerous enough 
 when cornered or wounded and righting 
 for his life. 
 
 It may be generally stated as a fact that 
 one never need be afraid of animals in the 
 ordinary way of travel. If you will let them 
 alone, they are only too glad to let you 
 alone, and to rush out of your way as fast 
 as possible. It is extremely difficult to catch 
 sight of animals at all, except at a distance. 
 Elephants, though not by any means scarce, 
 can rarely be seen, though you can follow 
 their path, which is very evident when newly 
 made, as they trample down a wide space 
 through the long grass. Natives have to 
 be extremely careful in walking where 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 95 
 
 elephants have been, for their spoor is full 
 of thorns, owing to the nature of the food 
 they eat, they being specially fond of mimosa 
 and thorn trees, and the natives constantly 
 get these thorns in their feet. It is rarely 
 necessary for missionaries to carry a gun, 
 unless they wish to shoot birds for food ; 
 for protection, it is not necessary in most 
 parts of Uganda, though some people think 
 it is probably an advantage in many of the 
 outlying districts. 
 
 The timber in many of the forests is 
 varied, and often of very good and useful 
 quality. Some trees attain an enormous size, 
 and produce fine planks. The difficulty has 
 been always, that there were no means of 
 hauling logs any distance from the forests. 
 Planks had to be hewn from the tree in 
 the forest, and then conveyed by porters 
 to their destination ; but saw-mills are now 
 being taken up. Trees will be cut down 
 in the vicinity of the lake, and floated on 
 
 8 
 
96 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 the lake to the saw-mill, so that we may 
 hope before very long to have a plentiful 
 supply of wood. It is an interesting fact 
 that the railway to Uganda has been unable 
 to use wooden sleepers, because of the 
 voracity of the white ants. Iron sleepers 
 from England are at present in use. The 
 timber most commonly employed resembles 
 box, beech, and similar hard woods. No 
 doubt there are many soft woods, such 
 as pine, but we have not seen these much 
 in use. The white ants have a great fancy 
 for all sorts of non-resinous timber. 
 
 Travelling is usually accomplished on 
 foot, though cycles are a help when the 
 country is anything like level. Horses, 
 mules, and donkeys do not appear to be 
 able to live very long. In most parts of 
 Uganda cattle do not thrive, though they 
 do fairly well ; but draught animals appear 
 to suffer from want of good fodder, and 
 in many cases have died from what the 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 97 
 
 natives say is snake-bite. One thing is 
 certain — that they mostly die within a very 
 few years of their arrival in the country, 
 and the cause has not yet been discovered. 
 
 Cycling has many difficulties, not only 
 the hills, but the narrow paths with grass 
 from one foot to ten or twelve feet high, 
 the higher grass or reeds at times almost 
 shutting out the sunlight, and, in the narrow 
 paths, holes and roots prove a source of 
 great annoyance and danger. It is not 
 comfortable when the brake gives way, 
 or when one loses control of the pedals, 
 in descending one of the numerous hills ; 
 for, as already described, each valley is 
 a swamp or a river, and, the bridge being 
 exceedingly narrow and very difficult to 
 cross, riding becomes a real source of danger. 
 It is a common experience to find the path 
 over the bridge much of the same formation 
 as the back of a cow. When the path 
 is at all damp, it is very easy to skid on 
 
9 8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 the sloping sides and be precipitated with 
 the bicycle, if not into the river, into the 
 reeds and rushes and mud, the depth of 
 which is very uncertain. 
 
 When making up a bridge the natives 
 usually take out the earth from the bank 
 close to the side of the road, and these 
 pits cannot be seen when the grass begins 
 to grow again. One traveller, losing control 
 of his machine descending the hill, thought 
 the best plan to save his neck was to turn 
 aside into the long grass ; but, to his dismay, 
 he rode into one of these pits. It was 
 deep, but narrow. The front wheel of 
 his bicycle struck the far side, and the 
 rear wheel remained on the near side, the 
 weight of the rider breaking the frame 
 of the bicycle clean in two, and the rider 
 falling between the two wheels into the 
 bottom of the hole. A severe shaking 
 was the only result to him, but not to 
 his bicycle. 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 9 9 
 
 It is a common thing for a bridge to 
 be washed away in the course of one 
 storm ; and one rider coming in to Mengo 
 in the afternoon and returning next morning 
 to his station, quite forgot that there had 
 been a severe storm during the night. 
 Crossing a bridge which was perfect the 
 previous day, he suddenly found himself 
 floundering in six feet of water, having 
 ridden straight into the place where the 
 bridge should have been. The difficulty 
 is increased when there is neither bridge 
 nor ferry across the swamps, as is often 
 the case in outlying districts. Then one 
 has recourse to human porterage. 
 
 It is not a costly luxury to be carried on 
 a man's shoulders ; for the man only charges 
 about eighteen pence a week to accompany 
 you and carry you over swamps, and out of 
 the eighteen pence he finds his own food. 
 Such porterage is a matter of necessity. 
 Nothing is more dangerous than to plunge 
 
ioo UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 into a swamp or a river when wet with 
 perspiration after a long walk or ride, and 
 then to remain, as must be the case, for 
 a considerable time in damp clothes. It 
 will probably mean a severe attack of fever, 
 if not loss of life. It is a good thing to 
 be small in Africa, a small person having 
 much less difficulty in getting carried ; but 
 even small ones do not experience com- 
 fortable feelings when the water reaches 
 up to the waist or armpits of the carrier, 
 and one knows that one false step would 
 pitch you into the evil-smelling, black, 
 muddy waters. It is much more difficult 
 for a heavy person, and the simpler plan 
 for such is to get three men to carry him 
 across, the leader taking charge of the 
 feet on his shoulders, and the two rear 
 porters supporting the weight of the body, 
 an arm being placed round each of their 
 necks. Where the water is deep the ex- 
 tremities remain dry, but not always the 
 
TRAVELLING IN UGANDA 101 
 
 middle garments, as it is very difficult to 
 keep the body rigid during a lengthy 
 passage. 
 
 Porters can rarely do more than fifteen 
 miles a day, unless the journey be only 
 for a day or two. Arrived in camp, they 
 have to fetch water, collect firewood, and 
 often go as much as two or three miles to 
 buy their own food. It is very inadvisable 
 to have to do these things after dark — and 
 darkness always comes on at 6*30, after 
 half an hour's twilight. These men carry 
 65 lb. quite easily, and many of them are 
 so strong that they can go ten or fifteen 
 miles without a rest. There are numbers 
 of men in the country who can carry 100 
 to 120 lb. on their heads for miles; but 
 the Government fixed limit is 65 lb. 
 
 Young travellers should never leave the 
 making up of their provision boxes to a 
 native boy without supervision. It is very 
 inconvenient to find at the first camp that 
 
io2 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 matches or soap or tea or salt have been 
 forgotten. One does not realise what a 
 necessity such small articles are until it is 
 impossible to get them. I have known at 
 least one man who had to go supperless to 
 bed, and a whole camp had to be pitched in 
 the dark, because he did not know in which 
 box his matches were, and could not find 
 them in the dark. The nearest dwelling 
 was more than two miles away, and it was 
 raining very heavily. These are not hard- 
 ships of travelling in Africa ; they are 
 the fruits of carelessness. 
 
I. THE R HADING ROOM OF A VILLAGE CHURCH. 
 2. A COUNTRY CHURCH, NAKANYUNYL 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 CHURCHES AND TEACHERS 
 
 Missionaries travel firstly to open up 
 new ground, and secondly to visit 
 country Churches and congregations and 
 see what work is being done. Our picture 
 shows a church in a little village, where 
 the work has just commenced, and is in 
 charge of a native evangelist sent out by 
 the Church Council. This is a little 
 temporary hut built by the natives, in 
 which they can learn to read ; but the 
 churches do not long remain of such a 
 meagre character as this. As the work 
 extends, so the churches are improved, and 
 our next illustration will show a church in 
 a well-worked district. These buildings are 
 
 103 
 
io 4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 put up by the natives at their own cost, 
 and with their own labour, the architect, for a 
 building of this size, usually being a European. 
 The interiors are often very beautiful, as 
 will be seen in the picture of the church 
 at Mitiana. The architect of this was the 
 Rev. H. W. Tegart, a European missionary ; 
 and very proud the natives are that they 
 are taught to build such handsome places. 
 The poles are covered with reeds, light 
 yellow in appearance ; the black marks are 
 the sewing with the bark of a small shrub, 
 which is very strong ; with it each reed is 
 individually sewn on. 
 
 At these places the work is carried on 
 for the most part by natives, supervised 
 by one European, sometimes with his 
 wife, sometimes with two lady missionaries 
 attached to the station, as in the case of 
 Ngogwe, Ndege, Iganga ; but more often 
 Europeans do not number more than 
 two. 
 
THE INTERIOR OF MITIANA CHURCH. 
 
CHURCHES AND TEACHERS 105 
 
 The native teachers attached to these 
 places are sent out in the first instance by 
 the country Church, and paid from its funds ; 
 after which, if found suitable, they go into 
 Mengo for further training, and are then 
 drafted off into various districts. Very faith- 
 ful many of them are. From amongst the 
 more faithful are selected, eventually, native 
 pastors, of whom there are now nearly thirty ; 
 but it must not be supposed that the native 
 ministry has any men who could rank in 
 education with men in England. The early 
 work increased so rapidly, that Europeans 
 were not nearly numerous enough to man 
 all the stations, and natives had to be or- 
 dained to take charge of districts. They are 
 very faithful men, so far as their light allows. 
 They do not work for any advantage they 
 gain in pay over the ordinary labourer ; for 
 the average wage of a teacher is not more 
 than 1 5s. a year and a garden on which to 
 grow his food, and ordained natives rarely 
 
io6 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 get more than £2 a year. Yet chiefs have, 
 in numerous instances, given up their chief- 
 tainships, or left them in the hands of a 
 steward, and gone off themselves to preach 
 the Gospel. The teacher shown in our 
 illustration is one of these. His name is 
 Lugunba, and his chieftainship is close to 
 the ferry from Uganda to Usoga, where all 
 the early travellers crossed into Uganda. 
 
 One instance will show what these teachers 
 are willing to undergo. Some have been 
 sent in the past to Nasa, at the south of the 
 lake, and one of these, returning in a canoe 
 to Uganda, was asked what kind of a journey 
 he had had. The journey occupies, by canoe, 
 from fourteen to twenty days, according to 
 the weather. 
 
 He replied, ' Oh ! pretty good, though 
 one day we did have rather a bad time. 
 A great storm came on, and the canoe cap- 
 sized. I was thrown into the water along 
 with all the crew, and I sank twice ; but just 
 
LUGUMBA, A CHIEF WHO RELINQUISHED HIS POSITION TO R ECO ME 
 A TEACHER. 
 
CHURCHES AND TEACHERS 107 
 
 as I was sinking a third time I caught hold 
 of a bale of cloth which was floating on the 
 surface of the water, and I held on to that. 
 The paddlers all clung to the overturned 
 canoe until the storm abated, and then they 
 righted it, and we all got in again.' 
 
 ' Well,' said his interrogator, ' how about 
 your clothes and books ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' he replied, ' I lost them all. I have 
 got nothing now but what you see me in.' He 
 did not ask for compensation. It had not 
 occurred to him that he could get it if he 
 did. Travelling in Africa is always liable to 
 be accompanied with danger and loss, and 
 natives think little or nothing of it. 
 
 On another occasion, a teacher trained 
 as a schoolmaster for two years had pro- 
 gressed well with English, reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, and was known to be a 
 thoroughly upright and reliable Christian. 
 A Government officer offered him a clerkship 
 in his office at a salary of ^24 a year, with 
 
io8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 an advance very shortly to a much higher 
 sum. 
 
 The youth replied, 1 I would very much 
 like to be a clerk, sir ; but I have been 
 trained as a teacher, and I prefer to be a 
 Christian teacher to being a clerk.' 
 
 He knew that he would never get more 
 than 20s. a year for a very long time to come 
 as a teacher, and probably less than that ; 
 he was at the time looking forward to being 
 married in the near future. This will show 
 that the Baganda are not afraid of exercising 
 a little self-denial for their Saviour's sake. 
 
 The natives are scarcely what could be 
 called eloquent preachers, though they are 
 very versatile. There is a great deal of 
 repetition in their addresses, and they need 
 much training before they preach really 
 useful sermons ; but this remark does not 
 apply to everybody. There are many in- 
 dividuals who can be termed good preachers. 
 It is not in the country districts thought at 
 
CHURCHES AND TEACHERS 109 
 
 all improper to preach long sermons. On 
 one of the islands a native preached so long 
 that, looking out of the window when he had 
 finished, and seeing the position of the sun, 
 he said, ' My friends, the time has passed 
 away quickly, and the day is advanced. It 
 is almost time for the afternoon service. 
 Is it not well that we go on with that, whilst 
 we are here ? ' This all the congregation 
 agreed to. 
 
 Another man had a habit at the afternoon 
 service of looking out of the window to 
 see the position of the sun, and rarely 
 thought of stopping until the sun was setting. 
 But it must not be supposed that all the 
 Baganda are fond of long sermons. Certainly 
 they are not in the capital. 
 
 In many country churches, where the 
 worshippers live several miles distant, the 
 majority of them, after morning service, 
 simply sit in a little house erected near the 
 church and wait for ^the afternoon service, 
 
no UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 sometimes eating a little food they have 
 brought with them, but more often fasting 
 until they reach home in the evening. Many 
 chiefs have a ' mwima ' (cowman) come to 
 church at mid-day with a jar or calabash 
 of milk, which sustains them until after the 
 afternoon service. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Now I will try to show, with the help 
 of a few pictures, the difference 
 Christianity has made to the people. Books 
 written by others have told of what the 
 European Administration has done and is 
 doing ; and I desire to give the British 
 Government Officials full credit for the vast 
 number of improvements they have intro- 
 duced, or helped the chiefs and missionaries 
 to introduce, into the country. No doubt the 
 imposition of the hut tax and the gun tax has 
 made the people work to a limited extent ; but 
 the fact must not be overlooked that the native 
 Governments have always imposed a hut or 
 
ii2 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 poll tax on the people, and the values of this 
 and the one imposed by the Administration 
 are not very widely different. 
 
 It does always strike people very forcibly 
 that, whilst coming from within ten miles 
 of Mombasa at the coast, right up to Uganda, 
 the whole of the inhabitants of the country 
 are savages in appearance and in most of 
 their habits ; yet, when one comes to Uganda, 
 the people are found to be clothed and in 
 their right minds. When Sir H. M. Stanley 
 saw the photographs of the two Christian 
 boys here presented, he exclaimed, 1 Do you 
 know, this is exactly what I have always 
 noticed throughout Africa. The Christian 
 natives have not the hunted, fearful expression 
 of countenance that the heathen have. The 
 Christians have a brighter, more intelligent, 
 and more solid expression.' These boys 
 have been brought up as Christians for 
 several years, though the one at the right 
 hand, as a child, was carried away from 
 
BARK CLOTH : T. STRIPPING OFF THE HARK. 
 2. KEATING IT OFT. 
 
SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 113 
 
 Unyoro and sold as a slave in Uganda. It 
 is always a joy to feel that one has been 
 privileged to have the bringing up of such 
 lads, and to think of what their future might 
 have been, but for the influence of Christ in 
 their lives. Certainly, they well repay the 
 teaching expended on them. 
 
 In the faces of our Christian women, 
 too, may be seen a difference, and the 
 illustration will show that even at the very 
 earliest age their children are taught to 
 go to God's House, for this picture was 
 taken just outside a church. The kindly 
 disposition of the lads could be instanced 
 in many ways, but one will serve to show 
 that they would set an example to English 
 children in some things. One of them served 
 a master who owned a dog. When the 
 dog was taken with distemper and lying 
 near to death, the lad sat beside it and 
 moistened its mouth with water every few 
 minutes until it died. It is a rare thing 
 
ii4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 to see a Christian lad in Uganda ill-treat a 
 dumb animal. 
 
 Then, Christianity has made an enormous 
 difference in the dress of the people. Sir 
 H. M. Stanley, on his first visit, noticed 
 the people better clothed than their neigh- 
 bours. Their clothing was, for the most 
 part, the bark of a tree, just as is worn 
 by the man in the illustration, which shows 
 him stripping off the bark of a common 
 wild fig tree, full of rubber sap, for the 
 purpose of making one of these cloths. 
 When stripped off, the bark is taken into 
 a hut, laid on a log of wood let into the 
 ground for solidity, and then is hammered out 
 with a ribbed wooden mallet, which spreads 
 it until it becomes, almost like cloth, though 
 more like leather in texture. This was the 
 national dress, varied by sheep and goat 
 skins, which the natives are very clever at 
 tanning. But these dresses will not wash, 
 and Christians consider that they should dress 
 
SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 115 
 
 in a more cleanly style. The picture of 
 the wedding group shows the difference, 
 and what they prefer. The cloths are mostly 
 calico, the cheaper kind imported from 
 America and India; the better kind, some from 
 America, some from England. The picture 
 shows a great deal more than an improve- 
 ment in dress. The women, having been 
 treated as slaves, were never, until recently, 
 even on their wedding day, allowed to walk 
 home with their husbands. The bride and 
 her maids usually passed out of one door, 
 and the bridegroom, with his followers, 
 usually passed out of the opposite door of 
 the church, each going to their respective 
 homes. The bride was taken to the husband 
 in the evening, after having been plentifully 
 smeared with butter. Then for the next 
 few weeks she spent her time in weeping, 
 or pretending to weep, and receiving the 
 condolences of her friends that she had 
 become the slave of a man, notwithstanding 
 
n6 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 the fact that in many instances the bride 
 had made great efforts to secure the husband. 
 That sort of thing is dying out under the 
 influence of Christianity. The bride is 
 allowed to take her husband s arm, and to- 
 gether they go to one home and one marriage 
 feast, and receive the congratulations of 
 their friends. 
 
 Many chiefs now allow their wives to 
 live in the same house as themselves, though 
 the custom of the country is, that the wife 
 of a chief shall occupy a separate house. 
 She may never feed with her lord, though 
 she may sit behind him and replenish his 
 cup with beer when it is empty ; but she 
 may not call on him, except at certain times, 
 and then she kneels down before him and 
 asks him how he is and if he slept well — 
 the customary salutation of the country. 
 The chief whose photo is shown here re- 
 gards his wife not as his slave, but as his 
 wife, and to all appearances thinks as much 
 
HE REV. AND MRS. Z. KIZ1TO, A CHRISTIAN CHIEF AND HIS 
 WIFE. 
 
SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 117 
 
 of her as many Christian Englishmen think 
 of their wives. She sits at table with him 
 for meals, and together they eat with knives 
 and forks and European table utensils 
 generally. This is the result of Christianity. 
 Polygamy was, and is, common amongst the 
 heathen and Mohammedans. A Christian is 
 married in church to one wife. Undoubtedly 
 it is a very hard matter for a man who 
 has had half a dozen wives to give them all 
 up but one when he is baptized ; but it is a 
 remarkable and wonderful testimony to the 
 power of Christ's Gospel that such men 
 receive strength to do this ; and that strength 
 is made perfect in weakness has been often 
 borne out during the progress of the Gospel 
 in Uganda. Unmarried men are not looked 
 on with much respect in Uganda, and one 
 boy quite decided that St. Paul must have 
 been a married man, for, he said, 1 Other- 
 wise he could never have obtained a seat 
 on any council of the Jews. At least,' 
 
n8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 said the boy, ' that is so in our country. 
 A bachelor is never listened to, in fact, he 
 is scarcely known, and could not, in any 
 case, get a chieftainship, or occupy any 
 position of influence in the country.' 
 
 Christianity has also made the people 
 work, because they feel that they must 
 have better clothing, better houses to live 
 in, some furniture, and a greater variety of 
 food, and these things act as an incentive 
 in making them work. Many of them are 
 learning to be bricklayers and brickmakers, 
 and numbers have been taught by the 
 industrial missionaries in building the 
 new cathedral in Mengo and in building 
 houses. The Industrial Mission has also 
 instructed a number of carpenters and 
 joiners ; some blacksmithing has been taught ; 
 and printers, who are now working in the 
 Government printing office at Entebe, have 
 learned their trade in the same way. The 
 boys learn composing and making-up in 
 
SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 119 
 
 printing very quickly, and a great deal of 
 printing, including that of the books required 
 in the Mission, is done at the Industrial 
 Mission. There is also a monthly paper, 
 called Uganda Notes, printed in English, 
 though the boys do not know much of that 
 language. Then, again, numbers of men are 
 engaged in trade, selling cloth, and trading 
 in various kinds of native products — baskets, 
 skins, mats, growing fruit for sale, collecting 
 eggs and fowls in the country and selling 
 them in the towns, making harps and walk- 
 ing-sticks, a few of them weaving a common 
 cotton, many of them growing cotton, collect- 
 ing rubber, coffee beans, and in many ways 
 trying to earn a respectable living. For 
 many years there have been numbers of 
 native blacksmiths. Iron is found in large 
 quantities in the country, and the natives 
 are very clever at smelting. As it is so often 
 heated in charcoal, during the process it 
 becomes carbonised, and of the nature of a 
 
i2o UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 soft steel. This the natives make into 
 knives and what they call razors, the anvil 
 being a stone, and the hammer a long piece 
 of iron, the bellows very crude — just native 
 pots, with pieces of goat skin and a stick 
 to blow with attached to the top — the blast 
 produced being very weak. These men 
 are improving themselves in many ways, 
 and getting taught by various Europeans 
 in the country, and many men who knew 
 a little of carpentering are taking lessons 
 and endeavouring to extend that branch of 
 their business. Many are engaged in making 
 soap from the fat of animals killed in the 
 market, mixed with a liquid which is 
 obtained by burning plantain peelings, and 
 straining the dust through a grass sieve. 
 Many, again, make banana beer for sale in 
 the markets ; but the intoxicating kind is 
 forbidden to be sold by the Native Council, 
 and the European Administration has done 
 its best to help the Council in this decision. 
 
THE REV. BARTOLOM AYO MUSOKE, WITH HIS WIFE AND FAMILY. 
 
SOME RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY 121 
 
 For some time now, the sale of intoxicating 
 drink has been entirely prohibited in all 
 markets directly under the control of the 
 Native Government. Under the Brussels 
 Act, any trader found guilty of selling spirit 
 or intoxicating drink to a native is liable 
 to a heavy fine. It would not be at all 
 a bad thing if the same rule were enforced 
 with regard to Europeans and Indians. 
 The Baganda have realised what an evil 
 strong drink is to the country, and have 
 tried to curtail the sale, though they cannot 
 hope to stop its use. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 UGANDA ONCE MORE 
 
 fter a journey home on furlough, I 
 
 / V reached Mombasa again at 10 a.m. on 
 August 19, 1903. We were all soon on 
 shore with our baggage. 
 
 The first train for Uganda, we found, 
 was to leave on Saturday ; this was 
 Wednesday. What a difference from the 
 old style, the waiting from a fortnight to 
 two months to arrange for porters, servants, 
 donkeys, and camp outfit ! Now we had 
 merely a visit to a store to get a basket 
 of provisions for a few days, a little methy- 
 lated spirit to boil water on the train. All 
 the rest of the time could be devoted to 
 sight-seeing. 
 
 122 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 123 
 
 And, nowadays, there is a good deal 
 to see in Mombasa and Frere Town, as 
 compared with a few years ago. Things 
 are going ahead. There are good hotels, 
 small public gardens, and a cathedral in 
 memory of Bishops Hannington and Parker. 
 The harbour presents a busy scene, and 
 the railway harbour at the south side of 
 Mombasa always provides something inter- 
 esting. The Arab, Persian, and Indian stores 
 well repay a visit, more especially if you 
 have an unlimited supply of rupees to 
 spare. 
 
 Missionarv work at Mombasa is hard 
 and difficult, with the cosmopolitan popu- 
 lation, chiefly professing Mohammedans and 
 the descendants of the freed slaves landed 
 there until recent years ; but progress is 
 being made, and developments in industrial 
 and educational work now in progress will 
 greatly help the other departments of the 
 Mission. What the difficulties are, none 
 
i2 4 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 but missionaries can possibly know, and 
 much patient plodding yields but little visible 
 result. Further inland the seed produces 
 far better crops, just as with the natural 
 soil, so with the spiritual, and great harvests 
 are being gathered in in some of the East 
 African mission stations. 
 
 Saturday noon arrived, and we made our 
 way to the tiny railway station, our luggage 
 having gone there ahead of us. We had 
 a strange collection — a medicine chest, 
 camera, bags of personal necessaries, and 
 baskets of tinned provisions, bread, milk, 
 bottles of water, saucepans, kettles, spirit 
 lamp, and table furniture — for we did not 
 know at all how long the journey might 
 take. We knew the train was advertised 
 to do the journey of 584 miles by the 
 following Tuesday morning ; but that was 
 not to say we should do it. Of course we 
 had a good supply of pillows and rugs, 
 as our nights must be spent on the train. 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 125 
 
 There are three passenger trains a week 
 for a part of the distance, but only one doing 
 the whole length. Ours was a specially- 
 heavy one, as we had quite twenty-five 
 European passengers, besides two carriages 
 of natives and Indians. In all, including 
 the registered luggage, which filled two 
 vans, we had ten vans and carriages, quite 
 as much as the engine could draw, seeing 
 that in the first 350 miles we ascend over 
 6,000 feet. 
 
 We had some illustrious passengers on 
 the train. The wife of the late Mwanga, 
 ex-king of Uganda, was returning from the 
 Seychelles, together with her infant child 
 and attendants. Hearing we were for 
 Uganda, and knowing our names, she asked 
 if we would take her in our care. 
 
 The chief transport officer gave us money 
 for her, in the event of her needing more 
 than she already had, and we looked after 
 her right up to Kisumu. 
 
i26 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 The first half of the journey we accom- 
 plished in fine style on the permanent 
 ballasted way ; and the 328 miles to Nairobi 
 was over in twenty-four hours, travelling 
 by night and day. 
 
 Arrangements were made for a stop for 
 dinner on Saturday night, for breakfast next 
 morning, and lunch at Nairobi. We agreed 
 to take meals at these stopping-places at 
 2s. 8d. per head. Such a large party of 
 Europeans being a rarity, the dak bungalows 
 were overwhelmed. We had to wait so long 
 between the courses that we had time to 
 get up an appetite between each. Many 
 and various were the comments in English, 
 French, Italian, and other languages as to 
 the incompetency of the flurried native 
 waiters and the more harassed Goa who 
 superintended the work. Two meals of 
 this nature satisfied most of us, and we 
 afterwards provided our own food on the 
 train. 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 127 
 
 Up to this point the scenery is very in- 
 teresting, but the most noticeable feature 
 is the vast quantities of game — antelope, 
 zebra, buffalo, wildebeeste, ostrich, rhinos, 
 and jackals. Lions, though not visible, 
 abound. This part of the Protectorate of 
 East Africa being a game preserve, the 
 animals are as tame as cattle in England, 
 and stand within ten or twenty yards of the 
 train, the driver having to constantly whistle 
 them off the track. 
 
 After Nairobi we made slower progress. 
 For several miles the gradient was so steep 
 that natives, decked in red earth and butter, 
 goat-skins and iron ornaments, easily ran 
 behind the train and caught it up, hanging 
 on to the guard's van, just as boys do on four- 
 wheelers at home. This part of the world 
 advances but slowly, though Nairobi itself 
 has a big European population, with highly 
 respectable houses and stores. 
 
 A mission has been commenced at Kikuyu, 
 
 10 
 
i28 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 some 340 miles from Mombasa, and has 
 made very good progress. It has, however, 
 a very uphill work in hand with Masai 
 and Wakikuyu, who, though very intelligent, 
 are yet very low down in the scale of 
 humanity. They never wash, I believe, 
 merely smearing on more fat and earth 
 when the shine wears off, much the same as 
 one varnishes a stove grate. 
 
 A few miles more brings us to the Kikuyu 
 Escarpment, a quick drop of 500 feet, and 
 then comes a welcome change. We are 
 in Lakeland, and pass in succession Nai- 
 vasha, Elmenteita, and Nakuru within a 
 few hours, and each quite of a different 
 character. 
 
 Here, again, game abounds, but not so 
 near the railway. The Masai herds of cattle 
 occupy their place on the vast plains. 
 
 Then comes the Mau. If one can imagine 
 a combination of Chatsworth, Matlock, and 
 Staines, with magnificent forest scenery ad 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 129 
 
 lib., some idea may be gained of the Mau 
 range of mountains. 
 
 I wish I could think living there on the 
 equator would be as healthy as at the places 
 mentioned ; but I believe it will be found 
 far otherwise. Central Africa is not well 
 suited to Europeans, unless they can have 
 constant trips home. 
 
 As we rumble over very frail-looking iron 
 bridges, one can readily see what a wonder- 
 ful piece of engineering the railway has been, 
 and how great were the difficulties to be 
 overcome. 
 
 The latter part of the journey we travelled 
 but slowly. Mau summit, the highest point 
 on the line, we reached at 11 on Monday 
 morning. This is 8,320 feet, and 496 
 miles on our way. We took till 9.30 on 
 Tuesday morning to make the remainder 
 of the 584 miles to Port Florence (Kisumu, 
 or Ugowe Bay, as the place is often called). 
 On Sunday and Monday nights we could not 
 
i3o UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 travel, as the line was not considered safe. 
 This does not mean unsafe because of 
 natives, although it is in the Nandi country, 
 where there had recently been a rising, 
 though not a serious one. 
 
 A curious and interesting sight was pro- 
 vided at each station by the Masai warriors 
 enrolled as scouts and guards. Some had 
 overcoats and rifles, but others merely their 
 spears, shields, and swords, and no clothing 
 whatever. To see their long spears de- 
 corated with a tiny Union Jack was certainly 
 novel. We were greatly amused when they 
 told us they were engaged to ' piga the 
 washenzi ' ('piga' means to fight, and 
 ' washenzi ' means savage or uncivilised 
 natives, a term of reproach. The Masai 
 themselves certainly deserve that title, if any 
 tribe or nation does). At one station a 
 quarrel between Wanandi and Masai had 
 arisen, and four of the former had been 
 killed just before our train arrived. 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 131 
 
 It was interesting to see the number of 
 Wakamba and Wakikuyu employed on the 
 railway on the higher lands far away from 
 their homes. It is not at all easy to 
 get these natives to work regularly, 
 and still more difficult to get them to 
 leave their homes to go to an unknown 
 country. 
 
 Port Florence is situated at the head of 
 a long narrow arm of the Lake Victoria 
 (' nyanza ' and lake mean the same thing), 
 which should be called Kavirondo Bay, 
 but has by many people been wrongly styled 
 Ugowe Bay. 
 
 The great desire of travellers is to escape 
 spending a night at Kisumu. If this should 
 be unavoidable, the night is generally passed 
 in the railway carriage ; though there is a 
 dak bungalow near the station, a very small 
 place, with very limited accommodation. 
 Mosquitos enjoy nights better than travellers, 
 who get very little sleep. 
 
i32 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 The regulations state that 1 Passengers 
 should fully understand that they must allow 
 others to occupy the same room as them- 
 selves, according to the number of beds 
 in it.' 
 
 1 Passengers availing themselves of the 
 retiring-rooms must make arrangements 
 for attendance by their own servants, and 
 also provide their own bedding.' 
 
 1 All complaints should be entered in the 
 Complaint Book kept for the purpose.' 
 
 At Port Florence a long jetty has been 
 built, so that the trains can run out right 
 alongside the railway steamer ' Winifred,' 
 the largest boat so far launched on the 
 lake. 
 
 What a relief to be able to step out of 
 the train on to a commodious steamer 175 
 feet long, of 250 tons register, and 500 
 horse-power ! 
 
 Leaving Port Florence at 2 p.m. on the 
 Tuesday, and anchoring overnight just at 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 133 
 
 the entrance to Kavirondo Bay, we steamed 
 off at daybreak, and by 5 p.m. on Wednesday 
 reached Entebe, the landing-place of Uganda, 
 after fifteen hours' steaming. 
 
 Steamers as large as the 1 Winifred ' go 
 out farther to sea, and so miss the varied and 
 charming scenery afforded by the islands 
 which thickly stud the north of the lake. 
 The deeper draught necessitates sailing in 
 mid-channel, even when passing between 
 islands, and much of the beauty is thus lost. 
 The trip across the lake will probably dis- 
 appoint many who have heard such glowing 
 descriptions of it from other travellers. Seen 
 from a near point of vantage in a dhow or 
 canoe, which usually keep as near land as 
 possible, the islands present an altogether 
 different appearance ; they are not very hilly, 
 and the ' Winifred ' is a little too far away 
 to enable one to fully appreciate them. I 
 need not pause to describe them, except to 
 say that they vary from bare rocks and 
 
i34 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 shingle-covered banks to grass-covered hills 
 and tropical forests, no two being alike. 
 
 Entebe, where we landed, is a long neck 
 of land running out into the lake, and has 
 a decidedly pretty appearance as we approach 
 from the lake. 
 
 The facilities for landing are a variable 
 quantity, and we were delayed considerably 
 in getting ashore, as the sometimes available 
 steam-launch could not be used, the engineer 
 having been sent elsewhere at the moment. 
 
 There is a jetty up to which smaller boats 
 may come, but the draught of the ' Wini- 
 fred ' is too deep to allow of her doing so, 
 even though she draws only six feet. So 
 we landed in small parties in one of the 
 ship's boats, and our baggage followed in the 
 other. As we did not cast anchor till after 
 5 p.m., and it is always dark here at 6.30, 
 the sun going down at six all the year 
 round, it was almost dark by the time we 
 got ashore. 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 135 
 
 We found three C.M.S. men down at the 
 jetty to meet us, together with some other 
 European friends, and a number of our 
 favourite boys who had come down from 
 Mengo to welcome us back. They were 
 pleased to see us, just as much so as their 
 letters had given us to expect, and gave a 
 hearty welcome to my wife too, who was 
 much interested in seeing what her native 
 friends were like. 
 
 We were up betimes next morning, anxious 
 to complete our journey and reach a place 
 we could call home. 
 
 To Mengo by the cart road is only twenty- 
 two miles ; yet it was perhaps the most 
 tedious part of the journey, considering the 
 distance. From Port Florence we had wired 
 for two cycles and an animal, not knowing 
 that natives are so civilised now that several 
 of them have rickshas they would have lent 
 us. The result was the arrival of a mule, 
 with a note stating that if trotted it would 
 
136 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 fall down, as it was weak-kneed. The next 
 result was that, of course, the cycles had to 
 wait for the mule, so that instead of getting 
 to Mengo before noon, it was 3 p.m. before 
 we reached there. 
 
 We had receptions all along the route. 
 At 10 a.m. we sat down on the roadside and 
 made tea. At 1 2 noon we came across boys 
 making tea at the roadside, sent by the 
 ladies at Mengo. At 2 p.m. we met boys 
 with a table spread, and a fire burning — 
 again at the roadside — and tea all ready, 
 with milk, biscuits (made in Germany), etc., 
 and sent by Zakasiya Kisingire, the second 
 Regent. He had already sent on a note, 
 with a mule which could trot, for my 
 wife to ride, and this had met us eight 
 miles out. 
 
 By this time we had been met with notes 
 of welcome from the Katikiro, Kago, another 
 big chief, and messages from several others. 
 Detachments of our teachers and friends had 
 
UGANDA ONCE MORE 137 
 
 joined our procession, until by the time we 
 reached Mengo we were quite a crowd. 
 The Bishop came on his mule some five 
 miles out to welcome us, and soon, as we 
 got to the capital, the Regent, who had sent 
 the tea, came out, together with Mika Sema- 
 timba and several others, whom we had to 
 hug in turn, heartily congratulated us on the 
 journey. The King too sent messengers to 
 salute us. 
 
 We went to the ladies' house, where all the 
 Europeans came as soon as they could get 
 from classes. A few had already met us on 
 the road, a mile out ; others had been some 
 distance at noon, and turned back, as we were 
 so delayed. 
 
 Then more tea and more congratulations, 
 and about five we were able to get away 
 and go to our own house, and I introduced 
 my wife to her abode. 
 
 It seemed scarcely possible that it was 
 only August 27, and we were safely in 
 
1 3 8 UGANDA BY PEN AND CAMERA 
 
 Mengo ; and yet it was only a month since 
 we left London, 
 
 We thanked God most sincerely for such 
 a prosperous voyage, and for the improved 
 means of transport. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.