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THE STORY OF THE EMPIRE
EDITED BY
HOWARD ANG US K E N N JEDY"
THE STORY OF THE EMPIRE
1/6 SERIES. 1/6
—5.3-3–
THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE,
By SIR WALTER BESANT.
THE STORY OF INDIA.
By DeMetRIUS C. BoulgeR.
THE STORY OF AUSTRALIA.
By FLORA. L. SHAW.
THE STORY OF CANADA.
By HowARD A. KENNEDY.
THE STORY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
By W. BASIL WoRSFOLD.
NEW ZEALAND,
By WILLIAM PEMBER REEVES
THE STORY OF THE WEST INDIES,
By ARNOLD KENNEDY.
THE STORY OF WEST AFRICA,
By MARY H. KINGSLEY.
THE STORY OF EGYPT.
By W. BASIL Worsfold.
THE STORY OF THE UGANDA
PROTECTORATE,
By GENERAL F. D. LUGARD.
T H E S TO RY
OF THE
U G A N D A
PROTECTORATE
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GENERAL F: D’LUGARD
C. B., D.S.O.
LONDON
HORACE MARSHALL & SON
TEMPLE HOUSE
E.C.,
| 4 & D.
EI) ITORIAL NOTE.
Owing to the absence from England
of General Lugard, now Aſgh Commis-
sioner of Morthern Migeria, Žhis volume
/*as 770% had the advantage of a final
revision in Żyrooſ by iſs author.
CONTENTS.
MAP OF THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE.
CHAP. PAGE.
I, THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE. ſ
Area and General Characteristics, 1 ;
Origin and Ethnology, 2 ; Geographical
Characteristics, 7 ; Characteristics of
the People, 13; Social Organization, 20;
Women and Children, 29; Religion, 33;
Dress, 37; Social Life, 39 ; Food, 40 ;
Drink, 42 ; Sport 45 ; Dwellings, 46;
Roads and Agriculture, 48 ; Punish-
ments, 50 ; Language, 5o ; Army and
Navy, 5 I ; Population, 5.4; Revenue, 55;
Natural Products s—and Manufac-
tures, 56; Music and Art, 62; Trade,
63; Flora and Fauna, 66; Diseases, 68.
II. NATIONAL LEGENTDS ANT) EARLY
HISTORY - -- sº * -- - 70
III. ARAB AND EUROPEAN DISCOVERERS - 76
lV. KING MWANGA ANI.) THE THREE
CREEDS - * sº * - - 86
V. TTLE ADVENT OF THE IMPERIAL
BRITISH EAST A FRICA COMPANY - I O2
VI. THE DECI, ARATION OF THE PROTEC-
TORATE *ss º sº º - I 32
VII. THE CONQUEST OF UNYORO * - 144
VIII. THE RAILWAY-RUILDING ERA - - I 48
IX. THE KING'S FLIGHT AND THE
SUDAN ESE MUTINY * mºn - I 53
A]2PENDIX MISSION STATISTICS - I 68
INDEX - * - * º * - I 69
CHAPTER I
THE CountRY AND ITs
PEOPLE
HE limits of the Uganda Protectorate may
not improbably be considerably modified
and extended in the near future, but at present
the country is bounded on the east by the “East
Africa Protectorate,” the country of Kavirondo
up to the centre of the Mau Escarpment
(Eldomo ravine) being included in Uganda. On
the north the whole of Usoga and the Wakedi
country are comprised in the Protectorate; on
the west the Protectorate is bounded by the
Congo Free State, and on the South by German
East Africa.
The principal districts included in this area
are Uganda proper, Unyoro, Usoga, Kavirondo,
Ankoli, and Toru. Each of these countries
differs as much from the others as from almost
any other country in Africa. Uganda presents
2
2 . NATIVE RACES
the most advanced native African civilization ;
its customs, people, and country are most
nearly approached by those of Unyoro, which
shares to a great degree its traditions. The
races in Uganda and Unyoro probably have
a common origin. Next in similarity comes
Usoga—or rather the southern districts of
Usoga—whose people, by long contact with
the Waganda, have become assimilated to
them in many of their customs and in dress.
The districts further north remain in their
pristine Savagery. In Kavirondo, Nandi, and
Elgon, we find some of the most primitive tribes
in Africa, entirely unlike the peoples of the
countries we have named to the north and west
of the Lake, in language, development,
characteristics, and origin. The inhabitants of
Ankoli and Toru, again, are Wahuma, concern-
ing whom it will be necessary to say a few words.
Emin relates that in some far distant epoch
(assigned by Stanley to the 14th or 15th century)
an invasion of “Wa-Witu " (Wahuma) from the
north-east entered Unyoro, crossing the Nile at
Mruli. Over-running the countries of Uganda,
Unyoro, Usoga, and Karagwe, they passed
south, founding the kingdoms of Ankoli and
Toru, and on towards Tanganyika, where
they still remain a separate race, speaking
their own language. The Wahuma invaders
were probably Asiatic, having a common origin
THE WAHUMA 3
with the Abyssinians, Gallas, and Somals, races
whose facial type is orthognathous, with a
prominent nasal bone, thin lips, and hair of
which the structure is identical with that of
Europeans. Their colour is usually light brown,
their physique thin and wiry, and their occupa-
tion that of nomad herdsmen. Their diet
consists of milk, and the blood and flesh of
their cattle. These they rarely slaughter, eating
those that die, and drawing the blood from the
living animal, a process which they believe
fattens the animals. Emin emphatically
describes them as natural gentlemen. Their
women are often beautiful, and girls of the
tribe were much sought after by slave-dealers for
export to the coast. The royal houses both of
Uganda and Unyoro had a large admixture of
Wahuma blood; and Mwanga, Mtesa, and
Kabarega showed in their features their kindred
with this stock.
As herdsmen, in these Bantu countries, they
occupy a semi-servile position, but they are
nevertheless regarded with much respect, and
are extremely independent. Though slaves,
they alone are allowed to pare their nails to a
point, and to wear brass on their ankles—the
prerogatives of the king. Speke describes them
as of “Shem-Hamitic origin,” and believes that
their name, Wa-Witu, may have been taken from
Omwitu (Mombasa), which they attacked in their
progress westwards and southwards. Disputes
4 THE ABORIGINAL WICHWEZI
arose as to the succession to the throne, and the
defeated claimant with his following left the
Country to found a new kingdom; and from
Unyoro, where the parent stock finally settled,
Uganda, Ankoli, Karagwe, Usinga, and even
the Watusi on Tanganyika were successively
conquered and subjected to Wahuma rulers,
under the nominal suzerainty of Unyoro. The
whole vast kingdom was called Kitara. The
parent stock, says Speke, traced its descent from
King David. They were for the most part
pastoral, though in Some cases, as in Abyssinia,
they became agricultural. The race was
phlegmatic, and took a different name in each
new country, adopting to some extent its
customs. But to-day they are seen to be an
exclusive race, very proud of caste, and speaking
a separate language—a race whose women do
not willingly marry negroes.
The aboriginal Wichwezi, on the other hand,
were negroids, prognathous, without a nasal
bone, thick-lipped, and with a woolly growth
on the scalp and other places, which under the
microscope exhibits the same structure as the
wool of the sheep, and grows in little tufts.
Their colour is deep black, their physique thick
and heavy, their occupation mainly agricultural
and stationary.
Emin and others suppose that a mixture of
these two races produced the Bantu stock,
from which the Waganda and Wanyoro are
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6 THE MIXTURE OF RACES
descended; and the legend related by Speke,
that the descendants of the white invaders
became half-black and half-white, with one part
of the head covered with hair and the other half
with wool, points to a recognition of this union.
The Wagoga and the inhabitants of the islands
in the Lake, however, seem to have no admix-
ture of Wahuma blood. Pure types of both
races remain among their Bantu descendants,
the Wichwezi negroids as gipsies and wan-
derers, the Wahuma following their vocation as
herdsmen. These Bantu, however, inclined to
the negroid type, whose blood probably pre-
dominated in their veins. A parallel may be
found in West Africa, where the great Hausa
and other races are supposed by some to be the
off-spring of a similar blending of the aboriginal
races—now driven to the swamps at the mouths
of the Congo and the Niger—with the invading
Fulani, or Berbers, from the north-west.
The aboriginals of Uganda were driven into
the impenetrable forests of the Rain Zone, or
the arid deserts, which afforded scope for
neither agricultural nor pastoral needs, by the
wave of immigration from the north - east.
Possibly the race which preceded even the
Negroids, and which now survives only in
the vast forests of the Congo, Aruwimi, or
Mombuttu, and (as “Bushmen ") in the
waterless tracts of the Kalahari Desert, consisted
of dwarfs.
BEAUTY OF THE COUNTRY 7
These two races, the Wahuma and the Bantu,
neither of which, however, is limited to the
Uganda Protectorate, form the bulk of the
inhabitants. The exigencies of space forbid an
examination into the origin of the races of
Kavirondo, Nandi, Kamasia, Elgon, or even of
Usoga—whose people Emin denies to be
Bantus—and of other outlying parts of the
Protectorate, however interesting the subject
would be to an ethnologist.
Every traveller on arriving in Uganda has
been struck by the beauty of the country and
its wonderful fertility. Stanley describes it as
“a country of singular fascination, and a people
peculiarly fascinating too—a land worth loving.”
He speaks of scenes unrivalled for soft beauty,
luxuriance, fertility, and sublimity; a soil of
inexhaustible fertility; forests tall and dense,
vegetation luxuriant and various. Emin, whose
travels had lain through the north of Uganda,
as Stanley's had lain to the east, west, and south,
echoes the same praises, “This,” he says, “is
indeed a beautiful and well-favoured land, with
its red soil, its green gardens, its loſty mountains
and its dark snug valleys.” Life, he says, is a
constant struggle with the superior forces of
nature, and the overwhelming life of plants and
animals. Speke is no less enthusiastic, espe-
cially in regard to Buddu ; while the Rev. C. T.
Wilson describes the forest ravines as the reali-
sation of childhood's dreams of Fairy-land.
8 THE EQUATORIAL REGION
Yet none of these travellers had seen the lofty
Mau Escarpment described later by Thomson,
or the magnificent snow-clad peaks of Ruwen-
zori, which Stanley later discovered from the
side of the Congo State, and along the northern
slopes of which the present writer travelled
shortly afterwards, nor yet the marvellously
beautiful Albert Edward Lake.
These later discoveries, more especially Ru-
wenzori, beyond doubt add very greatly to the
magnificence and beauty of the scenery. “There
exists,” says Speke, “a regular gradation of fer-
tility, surprisingly rich on the equator, but de-
creasing systematically from it, and the reason
why this great fertile zone is confined to the
equatorial regions is the same as that which
has constituted it the great focus of water or
lake supply whence issue the principal rivers of
Africa. On the equator lie the rain-bearing
influences of the Mountains of the Moon. The
equatorial line is in fact the centre of atmo-
spheric motion.” “It rains,” he adds, “in the
region of the equator more or less the whole
year round, but most at the equinoxes. The
winds have an easterly tending, and deflect
north and south, following the Sun. In the
drier season they blow so cold that the Sun's
heat is not distressing, and, in consequence of
this, and the average height of the plateau,
which is 3,000 feet, the general temperature of
the atmosphere is very pleasant, and the nights
CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNTRY 9
always cool.” Tables of observations relating
to the climate will be found in the appendices
to Speke's, Wilson's, Felkin's, and other books
of travel.
Uganda is a country of rounded hills of red
clay and marl, the geological formation
consisting of argillaceous sand-stones. The
hills are covered with pasture grass, and divided
by sluggish river swamps, choked with papyrus
and other vegetation. The swamps are frequently
half-a-mile broad and of treacherous bog, and
are often fringed with grand forests and dense
undergrowth. They are strangely described by
Speke as “rush-drains, the last waters of the
old bed of the Lake.”
The general level of the country is from 3,000
to 4,000 feet, and it is bisected by the equator.
The country becomes more rugged as the
traveller passes westward from the Victoria to
the Albert Lake. While the rounded hills of
Uganda rise only some 4oo feet above the
general level of the country, those in Unyoro
reach an altitude of 1,500 feet above the level.
Bamboo-grass upwards of ten feet high impedes
progress, while in Unyoro, as in Uganda, the
papyrus - choked river swamps are what
Schweinfurth calls “gallery-woods.” Towards
the south these give place to clear running
water, and after crossing the Mpanga — a
wonderfully picturesque stream, Surging and
eddying through gorges 7oo feet deep—the
IO UNYORO AND USOGA
interminable streams and rivers of icy-cold
clear water which flow from the snows of
Ruwenzori to the Albert Edward Lake and the
Semliki are encountered. Similarly to the east,
rivers of clear water drain the lofty main
plateau (8,000—-Io, ooo feet) to the Victoria
Lake, while Usoga presents the curious spec-
tacle of rivers running as it were by chance
Southwards to the Lake or northwards to the
Nile, the water-parting being almost imper-
ceptible.
Emin describes Unyoro (from the north) as
“a country sloping to the south and more
gently to the west, upon which rise isolated
dome-shaped hills, and even short ridges ; it
looks as if a continuous plateau had existed
there in a past age, from which enormous floods
had washed away the softer rocks, thus giving
rise to the existing hills.” Felkin, by the
light of more recent travels, more accurately
describes it as a plain sloping to the Nile to the
north, and hilly in the south. Its two great
rivers are the Kafu on the east, and the
Mpanga in the south, and the drainage is to the
Nile in the north, and to the Albert Edward in
the south. Among the rocky hills and boulders
of Unyoro are caves and underground dwellings,
in which the Wanyoro are said to live or to
take refuge in case of danger. Usoga Con-
tains one lofty mountain, Elgon — explored
and described by Thomson and by Major
TEMPERATURE, &c. I I
Macdonald. The Sesse Islands in the Victoria
Lake—the second largest lake in the world-
form a group said to number 4oo, and are very
rich in timber and pasture. The largest, Says
Wilson, is ten to fifteen miles long, and three to
four broad.
Wilson describes the northern part of Uganda
as an undulating country with ridges running
north-north-east and south-south - west, and
Professor A. H. Keane, in his Compendium of
Geography, well describes the composition of
the rounded hills as red marl, shaly gravel, and
iron ore slag, with valleys of rich black humus.
The maximum rainfall occurs at two periods
of the year, March to May, and September to
November, giving two seasons and double
crops. Hence the Uganda year is reckoned
as six months only, and the fertility is prodigious.
The temperature is equable, and Wilson esti-
mates it as varying between 50° and 90°.
Felkin gives the mean in Unyoro as 78°, with a
variation of 30°. The rainfall is about 50
inches in Uganda, and 6o in Unyoro, and is
often, says Emin, extremely partial. A black
soil over-lies a sandy red clay, said by Felkin
to be about 30 feet thick, and in places there
are deposits of the purest china clay. The
rocks are igneous, and metamorphic with rock
crystals; and the upper soil lies, in Unyoro, on
red quartz. Ironstone abounds, but no metal
other than iron has been found. Boiling springs,
12 LAKES AND MOUNTAINS
with Salt and sulphur deposits, occur at Kibero,
on the Albert Lake ; and there is a dark-
coloured salt lake at Katwi, lying only a few
yards from the shore of the Albert Edward.
Side by side with icy streams flowing from the
Ruwenzori are rivers of hot water, and the
“crater lakes” which are met with in the
lacustrine plain, and elsewhere in the south of
Unyoro, show traces of comparatively recent
volcanic action.
Three great lakes, the Victoria, the Albert,
and the Albert Edward, border, and partly lie
within, the Protectorate, and very many smaller
ones, including the chain of lakes on the
Victorian or Somerset Nile, to the north of the
Victoria, are met with, of varying size. The
Victoria is some 220 by 230 miles in area.
The prevailing winds upon it are from the
south-east in the morning; squalls and storms,
accompanied by water - spouts, are frequent,
and raise a heavy surf and sea. Fogs, too, are
not unusual.
The mountain mass of Ruwenzori is one of the
three great peaks in equatorial Africa which are
covered with perpetual snow. The snow-line is
at an altitude of 13, ooo feet. This mountain
was first seen by Mason and Gessi in their
explorations of the Albert Lake, and was
finally “discovered " by Stanley in 1888, when
Lieut. Stairs ascended it to a height of Io,677
feet, Early in 1891, I traversed its southern
TJGANIDA SEMI-CIVILIZED I 3
slopes from the Albert Edward to the Albert
Lake, and built a fort at the foot of the lofty
peak. Shortly afterwards Stuhlmann ascended
to some 5oo feet below the snow line; and he
reports that its chief geological structure is of
mica slate and old granite eruptive rocks. It
appears to consist of many parallel chains,
running north-north-west and south-south-east.
Mr. Scott-Elliott, who in 1894 reached an
altitude of 12,640 feet, believes no part of the
mountain to exceed 16,500 feet in height. The
belts of vegetation are as follows: 3,850 to
5,350 feet, bananas and tall grasses; 5,350 to
6,700 feet, colocassia and beans cultivated,
limit of settlements; 6,700 to 8,530 feet, erica,
bamboos, and deciduous trees; 8,530 to 11,800
feet, erica forests, bogs, and vaccuicum ; I 1,800
to Snow line, bushes, tree ferns, grass, mosses,
and lichens. Mr. J. E. S. Moore, in the
present year (1900), ascended what he claims
to be the highest peak of Ruwenzori, and con-
firmed Scott-Elliott's contention that the greatest
altitude was 16,500 feet. He found mosses
and lichens close to the summit.
The chief claim of Uganda to notice consists
in the extraordinary contrast between it,
with its semi - civilization and the intelli-
gence of its people, and the surrounding
tribes of Africa. We are familiar with Moham-
medan negro empires, and the comparative
civilization and justice which the introduction
I4 HISTORY OF UGANDA
of a higher religion and social law brings in its
train. But, so far as we are aware, no purely
Pagan tribe in Africa, shut off from contact
with surrounding peoples on a higher plane of
civilization, has ever developed so extraordinary
a social, political, and even legal system as was
found, at the time of its “discovery,” in Uganda.
Speke, with his companion Grant, was the first
European to enter Uganda, and he describes
the complex system of rule, the social organiza-
tion, the beautiful dresses of exquisitely tanned
skins and of “Mbugu ’’ or bark cloth, the
polished manners of the people, the high
standard they had attained in their manufac-
tures, and the far-reaching power of the king.
These will be described later in detail. Stanley,
too, many years later, remarked on the large
ideas which prompted the selection of a hill for
the sake of its view on which to build the
capital, and which replaced the narrow African
path by roads 20 feet and more in width.
Leaving, therefore, the naked savages of
Kavirondo, Elgon, Elgeya, Kamasia, and
Nandi, the Wakedi, and the Northern Wasoga,
and the dwellers on Ruwenzori and around the
Albert Edward Lake—whose customs and
characteristics nevertheless form a theme of
great interest—we will content ourselves with
a brief history of the Bantu peoples of Uganda
and Unyoro, and an examination of their
customs, while the exigencies of Space compel
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 15
us to refer the reader to any general work on
savage Africa for information regarding the
other types of the people of the Protectorate.
Even of the customs of the Wahuma space
forbids us to speak, and we must be content
with what has already been said of their char-
acteristics and origin. Generally speaking,
what is said of the people of Uganda applies
in a less degree to the Wanyoro, who had not
attained to quite the same plane of civilization,
and in a still less degree to the people of South
Usoga.
The Waganda are physically a very fine race
(Stanley speaks of men 6 feet 6 inches in height),
and make excellent porters, capable of carrying
very heavy loads. They have not the sense of
pain that Europeans have, and Felkin relates
that a man who had three teeth out was so
pleased that he wished more to be extracted,
while they often laugh and joke under an
operation. Their teeth are good. The men
are proud of any hair on the face—which is
not unusual. They have a distinctive national
odour. Few old persons are met with. The
powers of sight and hearing are very acute.
Albinos are not uncommon, and are said to
be usually females. Dwarfs are occasionally
seen, especially at Court, where they are treated
as licensed jesters.
In character, Stanley describes the people,
taken as a whole, as crafty, fraudful, thievish,
I6 CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE
deceiving, lying knaves, with an uncontrollable
love of gaining wealth by violence, with the
lawless instinct developed to a greater degree
than in any other African tribe. All in their
degree, he adds, are despots and vain, with a
tribe of sycophants and followers, down to the
peasant with a child to carry his gun for him.
But withal, they are neat, clean, and modest.
There is some truth in this indictment, but
it is too general and exaggerated. The extreme
indolence of the chiefs, and to a less degree of
all classes, is due largely to the institutions of
polygamy and domestic slavery. They are
affectionate, and become very attached, and
have naturally a kindly nature. The legends
relating to Kintu shew a high ideal of mercy
and of kindness to animals, while frequent acts
of disinterested humanity are on record, more
especially by women. On the other hand,
lying and thieving are not regarded as defects
of character, and are only reprobated and
punished if done clumsily and found out. A
thief if caught may be killed. An Mganda is,
above, all, impulsive, and easily falls into
thoughtless errors or precipitate action: now
recklessly brave, under the idea that he is
invulnerable, anon prone to panic in the un-
reasoning idea that all is lost. He is indifferent
to life, though suicide is rare; brave in war;
often cruel and treacherous, but always im-
pulsive. At one moment the countryside looks
THEIR SHREWD INTELLIGENCE 17
the home of endless peace ; unarmed men and
women are engaged in agriculture, or chattering
over their wares in the market. Five minutes
later some wild rumour has passed through the
people like an electric shock, and, without heed
to its truth or falsity, the war drums are sound-
ing, and every hill and dale bristles with spears
and riflemen. The friends of a moment ago
are ready to take each others' lives. Prompted
by the impulse of passion, the Waganda have
committed excesses, and have again and again
plunged their country heedlessly into war, and,
urged by the same emotional temperament, have
anon accepted Christianity by thousands with
enthusiasm, and died the death of martyrs for
their creed.
Another striking characteristic is their shrewd
intelligence, which is shown in their evolution,
unaided by extraneous example or teaching ;
for both the Mohammedan Arabs and the Chris-
tian travellers found Uganda semi-civilized when
they entered the country. It is shown by the
elaborate system of native law and custom, and
the strikingly shrewd arguments used in prose-
cuting or defending a case before the Baraza.
The questions put to Europeans regarding
civilized practices and inventions are wonder-
fully intelligent, while the knowledge displayed
of their own country, and everything in connec-
tion with it, proves them to have not only intellect
but extraordinarily retentive memories.
3
18 NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Their numerals reach almost indefinite limits,
and the system, like ours, is a decimal one.
The ſavourite game, Mweso, played on a board
with holes containing peas, requires rapid mental
calculation, and is so intricate that no European
seems to have mastered it. The people have a
positive mania for counting. Most of the chiefs
rapidly acquired Swaheli, and could write in the
Arabic character (using slabs of cotton-wood as
slates). Events were recorded in “books,” and
on the arrival of the European missionaries the
mania for learning to read and write was almost
incredible. Ashe relates that books could
hardly be sent up fast enough, and that on the
arrival of a consignment there was almost a
free fight to obtain them on payment. Wilson
says that in a few weeks a class trained on the
sol-fa system could sing almost any simple tune
at sight, and an envoy taken to England by him
could play simple tunes on the piano in a few
days. To illustrate a description they will
sketch on the ground, and to enforce the points
of an argument will break up a twig, placing one
bit in the hand of the listener for each head of
the argument.
Apart from these two characteristics of intel-
ligence and impetuosity, the national traits of
the Waganda are a love of pomp and display,
great cleanliness and neatness in their mode of
dress, of living and of eating ; a love of privacy
and a superficial modesty concealing a great
WAGANDA AND EUROPEANS 19
deal of immorality; bravery in war, and skill in
the arts and manufactures of peace.
Emin describes the Wanyoro as “modest and
unpretentious,” neither physically nor mentally
so fine as the Waganda, and less dignified and
graceful, with less expressive faces, and gener-
ally below medium height. Wilson sums up
the national character in the phrase: “Mentally
and physically superior to almost all the tribes
of Africa, they are morally inferior.”
The Waganda are very hospitable. All white
men were supposed to be the guests of the king,
and were supplied with food gratis, at least for
Some time after their arrival. No one was
allowed to sell to them. They were, however,
required to live in the place assigned to them.
They might not enter the country, or leave it,
without the permission of the king, and must
approach slowly and by circuitous routes under
the escort of the king's messenger and guide
—ancient and rigorous regulations which I had
necessarily to set aside. Guests are escorted
home at night by messengers with flaming
torches; a practice always followed also when
a chief goes abroad after dark. Mtesa was
personally very partial to Europeans, but the
chiefs always disliked and feared them, and
were jealous of their power. In Mwanga's time
this dislike culminated in the murder of Bishop
Hannington. Emin found Kabarega “ digni-
fied, courteous, well-mannered, hospitable, and
20 THE POSITION OF THE KING
intelligent,” but formed by no means so high an
estimate of Mtesa as Stanley had done. Hospi-
tality in these countries is, however, only a
cloak for greed, and the perpetual cry is “Give,”
until the visitor is stripped of all his goods.
The general scheme of government was “an
exceedingly complex feudal system.” The king
was an absolute despot, and regarded as divine.
Theoretically, he is the sole owner of all land,
but cannot alienate it, and only owns certain
estates as private property. The chiefs of pro-
vinces own similar estates, which appertain to
their office, and not the whole of their provinces.
The king can requisition more estates if he
desires them. Any man may annex waste land
and cultivate it, or may buy land, and if so
acquired it is inherited by sons (generally the
eldest), but not by daughters. There is, there-
fore, to some extent, a personal tenure. In
Unyoro, if there is no heir the land passes to
the local chief. The king may make grants of
land at any time by confiscation.
The despotism exercised by Mtesa in his
earlier years, and by his father Suna, was of
a kind which rivalled the worst records of
Behanzin of Dahomey, or of the Kings of Benin.
It is related that Mtesa, in fits of bloodthirsti-
ness, would enter his harem and kill his wives
for sport, and the accounts of Speke, Stanley,
Colonel Long, Wilson and Ashe are full of
stories of wholesale butcheries, while Mackay
DISREGARD OF HUMAN LIFE 21
states that “more than once hecatombs of
2,000 victims were butchered either in sheer
wantonness or else as offerings to the manes of
his father Suna.” It is unnecessary to quote
the revolting stories of these butcheries told by
each of these writers. Casati alleges that in
Unyoro also holocausts of victims (especially at
the ceremony of Mpango, when a chief was
finally sacrificed) were slaughtered to appease
the spirit of Kamrasi, as well as at the new moon,
and at many other times—while a living child
was buried in the path when the army went to
war. At the burial of a king in Unyoro, as
Speke relates, hundreds of men were mutilated
and thrown into the grave, still living, before it
was filled in, together with cloth and valuables.
This waste of human life was, therefore, in part
due to Pagan superstition, in part to the caprice
and bloodthirstiness of the king.
In those days also the punishments inflicted
for comparatively trivial offences—- exposing an
inch of leg, and so offending against decency;
a careless Salute, or an mbugu tied awry—
were most barbarous, such as the cutting-off of
ears or hands, the gouging-out of eyes, and
other mutilations. Ashe states that Mtesa
made an arbitrary law that every man must have
a bead on his wrist, on pain of loss of his head,
and every woman a bead round her waist, under
penalty of being cut in half Death was
inflicted in its most horrible forms, by burning
alive, and by the hacking-off of limbs.
22 COURT ETIQUETTE
Unnecessary as were these unspeakable bar-
barities, it was necessary to rule so turbulent a
people with a rod of iron.
The king, or kabaka, then wielded absolute
and arbitrary power. Every girl was available
for his harem should he desire her, and he
could dispossess the greatest chief in the king-
dom of lands, property, wives and children, and
give them to the meanest slave, without the
slightest demur. His voice was the voice of
God to his people. His court was surrounded
by a large retinue of soldiers, musicians, dwarfs,
clowns, albinos, messengers, executioners, and
pages. The punctilious court etiquette enforced
the strict observance of infinite rules of proce-
dure and ceremony. Ashe states that in the
time of Mwanga, at any rate, vile obscenities
were openly practised in Court. Every com-
mand or decision of the king was received
with reiterated cries of “Nyanzi" (thanks) and
by paroxysms of kicking with the feet, while
the recipient lay prone on his stomach and
rubbed his face in the dust, or by rising and
charging towards the king while the cry of
“Nyanzi” was repeated. In this chorus of
thanks all present joined with the recipient,
even though it were a sentence of death or
ruin. If the king sneezed, all Sneezed, and the
voice of flattery and adulation was never still.
If the king moved his house even for a very
short distance, every chief must do the same
SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE 23
and build at the exact distance from the palace
which is prescribed by etiquette and rank. His
messages were carried at full speed, and the
approaching guest was greeted by a constant
succession of couriers, and by small boys with
guns longer than themselves bearing the greet-
ings of king and chiefs.
Emin relates that the death of the king from
natural causes presages misfortune to the land,
and he is therefore killed by his wives when his
death seems imminent. His successor is chosen
by election from among the Walangira (princes
of royal blood), and as the choice is usually not
unanimous rival selections lead to protracted
wars. The eldest son may not be chosen, and
the choice usually falls on a child, during whose
minority the three greatest chiefs act as Regents,
and the young king is instructed in the ways and
traditions of the country. The remaining sons,
with the exception of one or two who are pre-
served in case of accident, are then killed.
Felkin says that the Queen-mother acts as
Regent till the new king assumes the govern-
ment. The recognized successor first buries
the body of the late king, and next usually kills
all his brothers and rivals. The late king's
grave becomes a sanctuary and refuge for
deposed chiefs and fugitives. It is said that a
new king in Unyoro sleeps two days on the
east of the Nile, and then enters the country
by the route his ancestors are supposed to have
taken.
24 ADMINISTRATION
Elaborate precautions are taken for the king's
safety; his well of drinking water is guarded by
a sub-chief, and his food prepared by a second,
both having made blood-brotherhood with him.
The king succeeds to the wives of his father,
who, with the exception of his own mother (and,
according to Ashe, any others who have become
mothers by the late king), become his wives.
His daughters may also, it is said, enter his
harem, but his sons with their mothers are
each assigned a district for their support, and
become Watongali, or sub-chiefs.
The king in Uganda is bound to consult the
Luchiko, or council of chiefs, which is held
daily by the Kabaka to dispense justice for the
country, and, according to Wilson, he dare not
oppose a unanimous opinion of the three here-
ditary chiefs, who would retort by deposing
him. He is not, therefore, in reality an autocrat.
In Unyoro there is no council, and justice is
less formal. Every peasant has the right of
appeal to the Luchiko ; here appointments to
chiefships are made, guests of distinction
received, and the foreign relations of the king-
dom transacted ; but to settle distant disputes
the king often appoints two commissioners.
Guests may attend the council, and are often
asked for advice, but their interference in purely
domestic politics is resented. The general
council consists of all the Wakungu and Waton-
gali at the capital, and there is an inner cabinet
THE ROYAL FAMILY 25
consisting of the three hereditary chiefs, the
Lubuga, and one or two others. This cabinet,
says Felkin, is supreme in Uganda, and can
insist on a general council being called; but in
Unyoro the king has greater power, and is
supported by a body-guard of Wasura. Punish-
ments inflicted at the Luchiko consist usually of
fines (oxen and girls), and deprivation of rank
and property. Death is less rarely inflicted,
since, as Kabarega told Emin, “dead men pay
no taxes.”
The king's mother—or if she be dead a
substitute—holds the official position of Nama-
sole, having a court of her own similar to the
king's, but in which women predominate ; and
she is a person of very great importance and
power. With her are associated the female
relatives of the late king. Both the Namasole
and the Lubuga have the title of Kabaka. The
Lubuga, or king's sister, also holds a court of
her own, and exercises great power in the State,
advising, as has been already mentioned, with
the three hereditary chiefs in the cabinet; and
she is installed with great ceremony and given
the implements for basket making as insignia.
The Walangira (princes) and Bambeja (prin-
cesses) of the royal blood exercise little or no
executive power, but are accorded a rank and
dignity—with estates in proportion—eorrespond.
ing to the closeness of their relationship to the
Kabaka. The Bambeja are not allowed to
26 PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
marry, and death by fire is the punishment of a
lover. They are nominally the virgin wives of
different deities, but are usually most unchaste,
except the virgin dedicated to the giant god
Budu, whom no man dare touch. The title
Kiwewa is applied to the eldest prince, and
Nasolo to the eldest princess.
The country is divided into ten provinces
under “Wakungu.” These, with a number of
the principal functionaries of the kingdom who
have no territorial charge, rank as the great
chiefs of Uganda, and are provided with estates
scattered throughout the provinces. Each chief
has, moreover, a house and grounds at the
capital, as in Japan. Of the non-territorial
chiefs who rank in the first-class, the Katikiro
takes precedence next to the Kabaka, and
acts as Prime Minister, and generally transacts
all the affairs of the country. The life of an
Mkungu is precarious, depending on the king's
caprice. An Mkungu collects the king's taxes,
and may impose such as he likes; and he must
bring occasional presents. The peasants, how-
ever, on the estates of the king and other
royalties, or of other great chiefs in a province,
are not under the provincial chief, except in war,
and may not be taxed by him. A despot in his
own province, he is a mere slave at court.
Should he incur the king's slightest displeasure,
it is obligatory to present his virgin daughters
to the king's harem as a propitiatory offering.
POSITION OF THE PEASANTS 27
Next in official rank to the great Wakungu
come the Watongali, or sub-chiefs. They differ
much in rank and grade. An appeal is allowed
from the Watongali to the Wakungu, from them
to the Katikiro, and finally to the king, but the
punishment is enhanced in each case if the
conviction is confirmed.
Below the Watongali are innumerable grada-
tions of rank, so that it has aptly been said that
there is hardly a man in Uganda who does not
hold an office of some kind. Most even of the
sub-chiefs are appointed by the king. At the
bottom of the social scale are the Wakopi, or
peasants, who, with the exception of the
Wahuma, are serfs whose duty it is to cultivate
the plantations of the chiefs, and to render to
them a recognized proportion of the produce.
They remain attached to the land, and change
masters with it. The Wakopi, armed for the
most part with spears, follow their chief to battle,
and upon them devolves the duty of foraging,
and, when the battle is won, of pursuing the
flying foe, and spearing the weary and the
wounded. They are dressed in mbugu cloth,
and in normal circumstances are well off, well
fed, and happy. As the subjects of a powerful
kingdom, they have not to fear aggression from
hostile tribes, but their hardships consist in the
exactions and tyranny of their own king and
chiefs. As serfs they are not considered to
have any proprietary rights in the land or
28 THE SLAVES
produce. Any chief or messenger with his
retinue, who may be authorized to pass that
way, may consume the whole produce of the
fields and occupy their houses. Their wives
and daughters are at the disposal of the king
and chiefs, and they are liable for service in war
at any moment. On the other hand, a man
who is a mere Mkopi to-day may be Katikiro of
Uganda to-morrow. In his own view he is a
man of importance, and each Mkopi has his
small slave boy to carry his gun for him on the
march.
Above the Wakopi in the social—as distinct
from the official—grade are the Wataka, or
landed proprietors, who, according to Ashe, can
not be arbitrarily evicted or sentenced to death.
Below all social grades are the slaves, for the
most part aliens and captives in war. They
are not badly off, but may at any moment be
sold to slave-dealers, and Wilsoh estimates that
about 1878 over 1, ooo were yearly sold (mostly
boys and girls) in lack of other means of paying
for necessaries. Felkin says an owner may kill
his slaves, but the practice is regarded with
disfavour. The Waganda, however, began to
recognize that the slave population was becoming
greatly depleted, and that this involved their
doing work themselves, and hence the export
must cease. There is a similar slave class in
Unyoro, but it is small. Head-slaves, says
Felkin, may marry and own slaves themselves;
THE POSITION OF WOMEN 29
and Ashe adds that a slave may redeem himself.
The price of a slave was from A3 to 246.
Ashe gives a description of the Kiyika, or
clans, each of which has an animal as its
symbol, and this animal may not be eaten by
the clan. No intermarriage within the Kiyika is
allowed. Each clan gives a virgin to the king's
harem, and if a child is born it is the £rotégé
of the clan.
The position of women in Uganda differs
little from that which obtains in all Bantu
countries. Those of the higher classes lead an
indolent life, while the peasant women perform
all the labour in the fields, and carry the pro-
duce to market, etc. The former, when out of
doors, are always in charge of a small boy ; the
latter go unattended. All classes are very
unchaste. The females greatly outnumber the
males, owing to the large number of men killed
in war and executed for offences or ceremonials,
as well as to the enormous number of women
captured in the wars of Suna and Mtesa from
the surrounding peoples. Wilson estimates
that the proportion is as 3; to I, and that, in
addition to the causes named, there are more
births of females than of males. Polygamy and
marriage at an extremely early age are custom-
ary, girls being wedded at 13 or I4. The
number of wives possessed by a man is an
indication of his wealth and status; they are
always marketable, and, meanwhile, as the
3o CHILDREN
women of the lower classes perform the agri-
cultural work, therefore the larger number of
wives the greater the return in crops. The
king possesses many hundred wives and concu-
bines ; the chiefs, each in his degree, have large
harems; a small chief would have from Io to 15,
while even a peasant has 3 or 4. The price of
a woman is given by Wilson at four cows or six
needles.
This system of polygamy and early marriage
tends to check the increase of population, since
only the youngest and favourite wives become
mothers. It also promoted war, by the quarrels
for succession of various sons by different
mothers. Women, says Emin, have children
when between the ages of twelve and twenty-
five, never later. Those of Unyoro, as a rule,
do not have more than two or three, while
Waganda women may have as many as six,
or even, perhaps, twelve. A - mother weans
her child in eighteen months or two years,
during which time she lives apart from her
husband. Girls go about completely naked
until marriage in Unyoro, and in the country
districts of Uganda they wear only a cincture of
beads round the waist; but at the capital they are
usually clothed as they grow out of mere child-
hood. Boys, however, are always clothed as
soon as they can walk. Emin Says that the
women of Unyoro, as in Uganda, frequently
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 3.
divest themselves of all clothing indoors, espe-
cially when sitting down to a meal, but abroad
they are always completely dressed in the
national mbugu, which is tucked tightly round
the body above the breasts and descends to the
feet, being drawn in with a girdle round the
waist. Peasant women have the breasts bare.
In spite of the modesty of their attire the
women of these countries are very immoral.
Death and torture are the punishment for
infidelity in the king's harem, yet intrigues are
constant. Divorce is easy, and the marriage
tie is loose. The favourite wife of the day in
a chief's harem wears a distinguishing mark
(often a bell), but the head-wife rules supreme.
Adultery, except when a wife of the king is
concerned, may be punished with a mere fine
of four cows.
In addition to the field work, women do the
cooking, except for the king and great chiefs,
who, from fear of poison, eat only the food
prepared by “blood-brothers.” Chiefs' wives do
no work, Women are never allowed to milk
the cows, and all pottery-work, building, and
artizan work, such as Smithing and canoe-
making, is performed by men. In Unyoro a
system of fattening the king's wives and
daughters prevails, and they are forced to drink
milk constantly, with no other food except a
little salt. They become mountains of fat, and
are unable to stand upright or to walk, except
32 SOCIAL STATUS OF WOMEN
on “all-fours.” In Uganda women may not
eat sheep, fowls, or eggs. Women cannot
inherit property, but in Unyoro the king's wives
may be holders of land, as also the Namasole
and Lubuga, as well as the Wichwezi priestesses
in Uganda. They may appoint agents to act
for them in its management.
The advent of Christianity has greatly im-
proved the social status of women in Uganda,
and they are now treated by the chiefs much
more in accordance with European ideas than
formerly. Polygamy has ceased among the
Christians, and marriages are of course cele-
brated with the rites of the church. Formerly
there were no marriage customs other than the
usual feasts and libations, and the purchase of
the wife. Women age very quickly, being
already old at 25 to 30 ; and many are childless.
There is great rejoicing throughout the village
at the birth of twins. Children belong to the
father, or, if the dower is unpaid, to the wife's
father. The ransom of each child is one ox.
Children are given one name in Uganda and
two in Unyoro. Men acquire other names (for
deeds of valour or personal peculiarities) in later
life. The names are very various, and are fre-
quently the names of animals, and sometimes
consist of short sentences. Children have
many games and make wonderfully clever
imitation huts, and copy scenery and villages
in mud-pies. They are well-disciplined and
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 33
wonderfully obedient and respectful, and are
usually much loved by their parents. The aged,
too, are looked after and cared for ; but there
are few of even middle age to be met with.
The religion of the Waganda prior to the
introduction of Islam and Christianity is gener-
ally spoken of as Lubare; but the people do not
like to speak of it, and hence it is not fully
understood. Emin, however, gives fairly full
accounts of the religion of Unyoro ; and Wilson,
Felkin and Ashe have collected much informa-
tion regarding that of Uganda. It is said that
the belief in a Supreme Creator, called Katonda,
was universal, but that there was no definite idea
of a future life. There were no idols, but offer-
ings and prayers were made to demons who
inhabit certain places and influence certain
objects. The greatest was Mukasa. This
Neptune of the Lake enters into some indi-
vidual, who henceforth becomes his oracle and
exercises great influence in procuring rain, or
averting war, famine, or plague. Plantains are
offered to Mukasa before undertaking a voyage.
Other demons are Chiwnika, and Nenda—gods
of war—who inhabit certain trees. To them
are offered sacrifices of animals, which must
be black, and these are received by the
guardians of the trees. Ndanla, or Kawali, is
the demon of small-pox, and is supposed to
reside in a mountain. Kaumpuli is the demon
of the Plague, and the gods of thunder and
4
34 RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
lightning are also objects of superstition. There
are also river gods, and departed kings are treated
as demi-gods. Mummies of the giant Budu
(Kimera), whose corpse a virgin bride ever
watches, and of Kibuga, the flying chief, may
still be seen, says Ashe, and they are greatly
venerated. Occasional human sacrifices are
made to these deities; especially to the Manes
of Kings. The legends –- especially those
relating to the Great Magician in Unyoro, and
to Kintu in Uganda—show that the people
believed in the continued existence of the
spirits of their kings and chiefs, and that these
exerted an influence after death. But possibly
this spirit-life was limited to royalty. The small
white house in every courtyard and the temples
in Uganda dedicated to the Muzimu—spirits—to
whom offerings are made, also indicate a crude
belief in a state of existence after death, but
only the king is really worshipped. Ashe
describes the strange belief that a spirit is
controlled by some mortal, who can thus
“Samira” the ghost of a dead man, and Mtesa
expressed the wish that no one should so
“Samira” his spirit. “Lubare’ he defines
as the “Upper air and water, and the deities
who live there,” and he describes a custom of
sending a scapegoat into the wilderness.
Superstition, and a belief in supernatural
powers, has an immense hold over the people.
The sorceresses (Wichwezi and Mabanda)
SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT 35
pretend to detect crime and theft, and to find
lost or stolen goods. They avert the evil eye,
and exert great influence by their powers of
making wind and rain. They also act as
doctors. The Wichwezi women dress in
fantastic rags, and adopt a falsetto voice.
Lands were assigned to them near the Nile,
and they were always present at Court.
Divination is practised, the entrails of fowls—
especially of a red or black cock—being used
as auguries. If the blood flows in several
streams it is said that the augury is good, if in
one only that it is bad. -
Dreams are not usually interpreted. If,
however, the king or one of the hereditary
chiefs has dreamt of the late king, holocausts
of victims, caught haphazard, are sacrificed, the
blood being caught in a trench dug for the pur-
pose. Magic and the efficacy of charms, amulets,
and incantations, and of good and bad omens, to
affect the fertility and fidelity of women, and
the increase of the fields and cattle, are
implicitly believed in. The potency of the evil
eye and the power of witchcraft, and the poison
ordeal, were beliefs which exerted a powerful
influence. Certain objects were supposed to
act as talismans, or to have especial powers
—such as the throne in Unyoro, on removal of
which the dynasty would cease, and the king's
drums and war shield in Uganda, which 'were
sent to reinforce an army in difficulties. Charms
36 CHARMS AND LEGENDS
consist of teeth, and of all kinds of odds and
ends, especially powders wrapped in snake-skin.
They were worn on the person, hung on trees,
or thrown into the lake or a river, according to
their class and purpose. Offerings brought to
the king must be rubbed on the face of the
donor to show there is no evil charm. Animals
are credited with good and bad characters, and
enter largely into their legends, in the manner of
“Brer Rabbit.” Stars are supposed to be
inhabited by giants, and the Wanyoro have a
great fear of Ruwenzori. Emin relates the
widely credited idea in that country that certain
men can leave their huts by night and roam in
quest of victims, whom they eat. At such times
they are invulnerable.
Ashe states that the Wahuma have no idea of
a hereafter, but have a hazy conception of a
deity whom they call “Lugabba.” In Unyoro,
a man, says Emin, is buried to the left of the
door, a woman to the right. Burial also some-
times takes place in the courtyard, where
offerings are made over the grave. Chiefs are
buried in wooden coffins; criminals and slaves
are left unburied, as also are warriors who die
in battle.
The advent of the Arabs, who brought with
them the religion of Islam, and of the mission-
aries of the Christian creeds, had a remarkable
effect in destroying these pagan superstitions.
Both these creeds took rapid root in Uganda,
DRESS 37
but until quite recently found no footing in
Unyoro, Usoga, or Ankoli, nor have they yet
made any appreciable progress in the last-named
countries.
Both men and women are completely clothed
in Unyoro, Uganda, and Usoga—formerly in
the mbugu or bark cloth, and beautifully tanned
skins; latterly, as regards the chiefs, in the
purest linen of Europe. The difficulty of
distinguishing at a short distance between men
and women so clothed gave rise to the old idea,
among surrounding countries, that in Uganda
there were no men. Speke describes head-
dresses of antelopes’ horns and boars’ tusks,
such as may now be seen in Kavirondo, but of
late years these have been discarded and the
chiefs wear a small bit of cloth tied round the
head, or an Arab cap. In the wars with the
Mohammedans, however, a head - dress was
distinctive of Islam, and the Christians fought
bare-headed.
The mbugu cloth, or skin rug, is worn knotted
over the shoulder and down to the feet, with an
under garment ; and women in Unyoro wear a
cloak. In battle men wear nothing but a loin
cloth. Boat-shaped sandals of hippo or buffalo
hide, with a loop for the toe and a band of fur
over the instep, are worn ; but leopard-skin, or
any brass fixing, is the prerogative of the king.
In the time of Stanley, warriors in battle wore
gorgeous ornaments, the Wasoga especially being
38 WEAPONS AND ORNAMENTS
distinguished by white ostrich plumes, lion and
leopard skins, and girdles of long white monkey
and goat hair added to their battle array. The
Uganda spear is seven feet long, and the shields
are oval, beautifully made of wicker-work, with
Wooden bosses; but these have been replaced
of late years by guns and modern rifles among
the important men. Arm - rings, bracelets,
necklaces, and other decorations of beads or
ivory are much worn, especially by women,
while anklets of brass and necklaces of roots
are worn in Unyoro. Finger-rings of iron or
brass or silver are also used.
Being fully clothed, these people do not rub
fat over their bodies as do most Africans, nor do
they dress the hair fantastically, as is almost
universally done by the natives elsewhere. It
is either worn au nature/ or the head is shaved,
the latter being a sign of mourning in Unyoro.
Both peoples remove all hair from the body
except on the face. They are proud of a beard,
and, unlike most Africans, many men have some
hair on their faces. The Waganda do not file
their teeth or make any tribal cuts, and no tattoo
marks or self-inflicted mutilations are allowed ;
but the Wanyoro extract the lower incisors and
make two burns on the temples as tribal marks.
The people have a strong natural odour,
which, according to Ashe, is completely absent
in the Wahuma. Their colour varies from black
to yellow, but always with a reddish tinge.
SOCIAL LIFE 39
Ashe states that when in mourning in Uganda
only the mbugu is worn, with no white or
coloured cloths, the hair is allowed to grow, and
the men wear a girdle of withered banana leaves,
the women one of green leaves.
The social life of the Waganda has reached a
much higher plane than that of the Wanyoro,
but both peoples are very much alike. There is,
however, a less orderly justice administered in
Unyoro, and the people are less decent and less
developed. The forms of salutation in both
countries are most elaborate, and especial words
are used for each occasion. An inferior kneels
or prostrates himself before a superior. Friends
embrace by clasping each other and leaning
their heads first over one shoulder and then over
the other of their friend, at the same time
repeating long formulae of greetings. There is
a word “to kiss” in the language, but it is never
practised, and is considered very improper,
Travellers along a road echo and re-echo the
final sounds of the words of greeting, bandying
it backwards and forwards as it were, till it
becomes a series of alternate grunts, often
continued for a ludicrously long time after the
friends have left each other. The king's hands
are carried reverently to the head or lips as
salutation, but the strict court etiquette of
Uganda is notably absent in Unyoro. Coffee
berries are handed to guests, and are continually
chewed—never decocted—taking the place of
4O HABITS AND CUSTOMS
the kola nut of West Africa. No one was
allowed out at night, and Ashe states that the
executioners went out from time to time and
killed all and sundry whom they might meet
after dark.
Both Waganda and Wanyoro are clean in
their persons and in eating, fumigate their
clothes to destroy vermin, and rub scented clay
on their bodies.
The food of the people consists chiefly of
bananas and of sweet potatoes, the former
more especially in Uganda, the latter in Unyoro.
Vegetables, gourds, eleusine, maize, millet, Casava,
rice, Sorghum, ground nuts, beans, pumpkins,
yams, and colocasia are also eaten, and meat
whenever obtainable, even if “high,” but
animals that have died a natural death are
generally rejected. Beef is the luxury of the
wealthy; goat's flesh the meat of the peasant.
Some eat fish, especially those living near the
great lakes, also fowls and eggs; others do not
touch them. {}
The flesh of elephants, hippopotami, and of
all reptiles, is avoided, except by the Sesse
Islanders, who eat hippo flesh; but game and
large rodents are much appreciated. All
vegetable food — except bananas, which are
roasted or steamed, or prepared in a hundred
different ways—is usually eaten as a porridge,
with which meat broth, honey, butter, Sesame or
chilies are taken as a condiment. Bananas are
FOOD 4. I
also dried and made into flour for transport, and
then used as a porridge, never as bread: a
custom common to all Bantu races. Sugar
cane is much liked, and milk is drunk when
obtainable. It is generally curdled, being
brought from the grazing grounds at a distance.
Salt is much in request, and little children will
eat it in preference to sweetmeats. Both
Waganda and Wanyoro eat termites, either
roasted, or alive as they come out from the
ground. A species of grasshopper is also eaten,
and, Wilson adds, locusts, as well as the nkungu
fly (a midge which flies in clouds across the lake),
precisely as is done on Nyassa.
Fire for cooking used to be obtained from
the fire-stick, but this has long been superseded
by imported matches.
In a large household the master and a few
wives eat together, and the rest of the wives
and children eat in their own huts, while the
slaves form a separate group. In a peasant's
house all eat together. In some cases the
head slaves are allowed to join the master's
table. Banana leaves are used as a table-
cloth, and wet napkins, of green banana stem,
are used to wash the hands. No drink is taken
till the meal is finished. Women divest them-
selves of all clothing before eating, and at a
chief's house there is often music during a meal.
The food is taken with the fingers from a
common dish—the hands being first washed.
42 MEALS
Coffee berries, pipes with long stems, and
bowls of banana cider, follow a meal, of which
there are usually three in a day. In Unyoro
the general food utensil is a boat-shaped dish,
standing on legs, from which all help them-
selves with their hands, or with spoons made
from gourds.
Cooking is generally done by steaming, meat
being wrapped in a banana leaf and placed in
the pot on the top of bananas, which are kept
from Scorching by placing sticks at the bottom.
Women in Unyoro only eat the ripe banana
raw, and in that country earth-eating is resorted
to. Gluttony is a common vice, and men will
eat meat till they are as gorged as a python and
can hardly move.
The national drink is a liquor, more or less
fermented, prepared from the banana. The
fresh juice unfermented is called Sandi in
Unyoro, Mubisi in Uganda, and is non-
intoxicating. Movengi is the same, fermented
and intoxicating. Malwa (Uganda) and
Mwenge (Unyoro) are highly fermented and
rendered very intoxicating by the addition of
millet. In addition to this banana cider there
is a non-intoxicating beer, called Merua in
Unyoro and Mlamba in Uganda, made from
boiled millet or eleusine corn. The banana
cider is imbibed from morning till night, and
even on the march a man will carry a gourd of
it, and suck slowly through the tube of beauti-
NATIVE DRINKS 43
fully plaited coloured grasses made for the
purpose. Water is rarely used as a beverage,
yet Emin says that he never saw a drunken
person in Unyoro. In Uganda drunkenness by
day is rare, but drinking parties at night become
boisterous and intoxicated. The effect of much
drinking is generally to produce a fuddled State
of semi-intoxication, which, however, appears to
produce no ill-effects next day—very different
from the wild semi-insanity caused by imported
European spirits in West Africa, or by the palm
tembo of the East Coast. It is regrettable to
have to record that Baker taught the Wanyoro,
and Speke the Waganda, how to distil liquor
from corn and potatoes, and the Arabs (says
Wilson), in spite of their creed, did the same.
The gourd bottles used for holding the cider
are of all the elegant shapes of our decanters.
Coffee drinking is unknown, but the berry,
gathered green and sometimes roasted, is
chewed.
Both sexes are inveterate smokers, but do
not chew tobacco or take it as snuff. The
pipes are of earthenware, and are often very
large, with enormously long stems.
Blood brotherhood is made in these countries
by an incision over the fifth rib. Coffee berries
are dipped in the blood and eaten, and the
bond formed is of the utmost sacredness, and
never broken.
The Badu, or Slaves, who have no rights, have
44 DOMESTIC ANIMALS
been alluded to, domestic slavery being a
condition of the social life in Uganda. It has
been seen that they are well treated, and feed
with the household, though they may be sold or
killed. They usually perform the menial work
in the house. The institution encourages
indolence and the conception that all labour is
derogatory, which is one of the greatest evils of
the system.
The Waganda and Wahuma possess dogs,
but these are not so prized as in the time of
Speke, and are mostly pariahs. The decadence
of the dog is probably due to the influence of
the Arabs, who, as Mohammedans, abhor it as
unclean. The Waganda also keep parrots and
cats, but the Wanyoro have few or no domestic
pets.
The cattle of the country are a very fine
breed, carrying prodigious horns and having
humps. The horns are often taken off when
young, and the wound cauterized, to enable the
animal to get through the jungle. The Wahuma
are invariably the herdsmen; the Waganda
will not touch cattle, and women are never
allowed to milk. Goats are universally kept,
and the hair of the breed in Buddu resembles
that of the Angora in its length and silky
texture. The skin of the goat is used for dress
and to ornament the prows of canoes and
musical instruments. Sheep are not numerous,
and are lean—as are the fowls—and of the
SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS 4.5
ordinary African type. There are no beasts of
burden in the country, but chiefs often ride on
the shoulders of men, who carry them swiftly
and for great distances.
Hunting — in which dogs are used -- not
merely for meat, but as a form of sport, is not
unknown. He who inflicts the fatal wound
claims the trophies. The skin of a lion or
leopard belongs to the king, and if the animal
is killed near the capital it is taken bodily to
him. The king has also one tusk of every
elephant killed, and can claim to purchase
the other if he wishes. Elephants were once
hunted with spears; but of late years with
guns. They are also caught in pit - falls.
Buffaloes are trapped by a wreath of thorns
attached to a heavy log, of which the animal
cannot rid himself when he has put his foot
into the ring. Antelope are caught in nets, and
lions and leopards are often killed by the fall of
a balanced log. Unlike most other Africans,
these people value the horns, &c., as trophies
of the chase. The common mode of fishing,
says Wilson, is with a rod and line ; the hooks
are not barbed, and the line is of aloe-fibre.
Fish are also caught in nets, and in basket-
traps.
As with all Africans, the chief amusement of
the people is dancing to the beat of the drum,
with bells, rattles, and flutes as an accompani-
ment. The common dance is best described
46 DWELLINGS
as a series of writhing contortions, the body
being thrown into many postures, while the feet
maintain a slow shuffle only. It is extremely
exhausting, and generally very indecent. Wilson
says that a freer and truer mode of dancing is
also practised.
Wrestling is also a national sport, the throw
being generally from the hip. Ashe also speaks
of a game of throwing sticks in some peculiar
way, also a gambling game with cowries,
introduced, he says, from Egypt. Many kinds
of game at ball are played by boys, while the
sedentary game of mweso (already spoken of)
provides employment for their elders.
The huts of the Waganda are probably the
largest and best in Africa. They are of bee-
hive shape, with a doorway cut in the side,
facing up-hill, and with a bonnet-like projection
over it. The construction is begun with a
circle on the ground, and this is gradually
raised as ribs of reed and larger concentric
circles are added, till, supported on a forest of
poles, it is placed in situ. The thatch is begun
from the bottom, and a prodigious quantity of
grass is used, as much as 24 feet being found
on the hut containing Mtesa's tomb, when a
lightning conductor was fixed upon it. Women
may not take part in building, and the thatchers
are a separate guild. Inside, the walls are made
of stout bamboo reeds, carefully washed, and
secured, side by side, vertically with banana-fibre
INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS 47
string, in perfect regularity. The space between
the inner and outer wall is usually filled with
grass, or the wall may be made in the ordinary
way of grass and reeds. The interior, which
presents the appearance of a forest of poles, is
usually divided into a living and a sleeping
room, though big chiefs have often separate
houses for cooking and sleeping. Fine soft
grass of a particular kind is very carefully laid
on the floor, but never changed, fresh grass
being laid on the top of the old grass from
time to time. Hence the houses become full
of vermin and rotting grass. Every article is
neatly wrapped up in banana leaf, tied and put
away in its place, and the bed is raised from
the floor, and covered with bark cloth and
soft skins.
Leading to the house of a chief are innumer-
able courtyards enclosed by reed walls Io to
I5 feet high, the uprights being officus boughs,
which take root and give a welcome shade.
Each courtyard has its reed gate with a separate
name and bell and gate-keeper. The latter
announces the name of a visitor, and none may
pass the inner gate without permission. The
number of these courtyards corresponds to the
rank of the owner. Within these enclosures
formerly stood the miniature huts of the
Muzimu or Deity, but among those who have
adopted the new religions these have dis-
appeared. Store houses are also found in the
48 ROADS AND AGRICULTURE
enclosures. The huts of the Wanyoro are
scattered and hemispherical in shape, usually
20 feet to 30 feet in diameter and 20 feet to
25 feet high. Their type is like those of
Uganda, but without the courtyards, and as
in everything else the Waganda excel their
neighbours. The striking contrast which is
presented between these dwellings and those
of Africans in general consists not only in their
neatness and Superior workmanship, but in
their privacy.
The roads made by the Waganda afford a
striking indication of the progress they have
attained. These connect the capital with
distant centres in each province, and are from
25 feet to 80 feet broad, and well kept. They
are singularly straight, and lead impartially over
the crests of hills and through dense forests.
Palm logs, as a substitute for bridges, span the
smaller streams and marshes. Each village
chief is responsible for the up-keep of the road
where it passes through his fields. There are
no roads of this description in Unyoro.
Agriculture is chiefly carried on by the
women, who do the field work. The banana
groves are kept scrupulously clean, and not a
stray leaf or weed encumbers the ground. To
keep down weeds the leaves are laid on the
ground, and finally burnt or piled round the
stem of the plantain, this being the only
form of manuring as yet known to them. The
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS 49
hoe is the agricultural implement, and is formed
of a heart-shaped blade lashed to a short and
heavy handle, with a fork at an acute angle to
carry the blade.
Hedges may be seen marking the boundaries
of property, a purpose for which they are not
used in other parts of Africa. The many kinds
of vegetables already enumerated as forming the
food of the people are cultivated in the fields,
as also very superior tobacco, and bottle-gourds.
Wheat, rice, onions, limes, tomatoes, guavas,
pomegranates, pawpaws, and other fruits
have been introduced and are now cultivated
extensively. Coffee and cotton are both indi-
genous, and if cultivated and improved in
quality and preparation would form valuable
articles of export. The national food, the
banana, has been cultivated to such purpose
that perhaps nowhere in the world can a more
luscious fruit be found, while endless varieties,
each known by its distinctive name, have been
evolved for cooking purposes. Emin identified
three principal kinds. It is cooked in a multi-
plicity of ways. The plant is also put to many
other uses. Its Sappy stem forms towels and
sponges, its leaves are used for paper and
thatching. From the fibre is made string and
rope, and from the ashes of the green peel of
the fruit is decocted a lye for the manufacture
of soap. The various kinds of cider made
from the ripe fruit have already been described.
5
5O PUNISHMENTS
Sanitation is little heeded, and every bit of
waste land, even in the capital, is a source of
pollution, but under the indefatigable efforts of
Mr. George Wilson great improvements have of
late been made. -
The punishments awarded were death (by
the order of the King of Wakungu), which
was carried out by beheading, strangling, bleed-
ing, burning, and even by hacking the victim
slowly to death, each severed limb being thrown
into the fire, till only the limbless trunk
remained. In Unyoro the modes of execution
are generally clubbing, bleeding, starvation, or
the spear. Homicide is considered justifiable
on sufficient provocation, and only the original
causer is held to be guilty. The executioners
of the court are distinguished by a cord twisted
round their heads. A lesser punishment is
mutilation, such as the loss of an eye, an ear, a
hand or an arm, and this is frequently inflicted
for theft. Fines and confiscation are the
commonest penalties for the higher ranks, and
other punishments are frequently commuted for
these, since they add to the revenue. Murder
is punished by death, which may, however, be
commuted for a fine. The lesser punishments
for the lower classes are flogging and confine-
ment in the stocks or slave-stick.
The language spoken by the Waganda and
Wanyoro shows slight variations in the two
countries. It belongs to the Bantu family—
LANGUAGE, WEIGHTS, Erc. 51
according to Bleek, to the Zanglian genus of the
middle branch. It is a very pure dialect, free
from admixture of foreign words, and has a very
rich vocabulary, and many forms of pronouns.
It is highly alliterative, and the flexional
changes are made at the beginning and not at
the end of a word. The verb is compounded
with affixes denoting tense, mood, the agent and
object, and even locative particles. Cassati
asserts that there are many Galla words in
Kinyoro, proving the Abyssinian origin of the
Wahuma.
The measures in use are the span, the cubit,
and the arm’s length ; and (of capacity)
handsful' and various measures. Tallies and
counters are used in counting.
Simple levers are in use, and heavy weights
are hauled by word of command.
The constitution of the army indicates the
high state of internal organization reached
by the Waganda. “Every man,” says Wilson,
“who can handle a spear and shield is a
soldier.” On the outbreak of war a general
is nominated by the Kabaka from among
the chiefs — latterly it was agreed that he
should be taken alternately from the “English"
and “French * factions. He is received with
acclamations by the Mujasi (titular head of the
body-guard) and his soldiers, and he and they
forthwith take the oath of allegiance. This is
done in a very picturesque fashion. The
52 A PICTURESQUE CEREMONY
Kabaka stands bare-headed at the palace gates,
the royal umbrella held over him, and his great
chiefs around him, the grey-headed drummers
sounding the giant war-drums the while. Each
warrior, dashing up the lane formed by the
crowd in front of the king, with his gun held
aloft as though to fell the king with the butt,
shouts the oath and returns to give place to
another. They then carry off the general, since,
being now endowed with the full powers of
Kabaka, it is not fitting that two kings should
sleep in the same town. In old times the fetish
charms were taken to the king to touch, and so
propitiate the Muzimu, and ensure victory.
The chiefs disperse, each to his own province
to collect his fighting men, and meet at a given
rendezvous, where the oath of allegiance to
the general is taken in the same manner.
Here a census of the army is taken, and an
advance is made in parallel columns, each
under its own chief, who leads his men in the
battle. The general, though now Kabaka, is
guided by a council of chiefs, while the king at
the capital keeps a tally of his fighting men by
means of a board with pegs to represent the
numbers. Red means I, ooo, black Ioo, and
white Io. Losses in battle are deducted, and
the numbers assigned for any foray are thus
determined and reinforcements, if necessary,
despatched. The army in the field employs
scouts and skirmishers, and a host of foragers,
THE WAGANDA ARMY 53
and each night bivouacs in rapidly-made grass
huts. Discipline is maintained, and all orders
are conveyed by drum note, of which there are
an infinite variety, distinguishable only to the
ear of a native. As the battles are hand-to-
hand encounters (even in spite of the intro-
duction of fire-arms), they are usually very
bloody. In the days of Suna and Mtesa the
penalty of defeat was death, the reward of
victory was wealth and preferment. The drum
serves as the “colours,” and its loss is a great
disgrace, men rallying round it and dying in
heaps in its defence. The significance, there-
fore, of Mbogo's act, when he presented the
drum which had been captured by the
Mohammedans from the Christians in battle to
the British representative, can be understood.
Stanley estimated the army of Suna when he
fought the Watuma at not less than a quarter of
a million; but fifteen years of constant inter-
necine war have so reduced the fighting
strength, that it is probable that to-day not
more than fifteen to twenty thousand could take
the field. Ten years ago Ashe estimated the
fighting strength at forty thousand.
In those days, too, the fleet of war boats
numbered about five hundred–great and small
—of which the largest measured upwards of
70 feet in length by 7 feet beam, and required
Some sixty paddlers. Stanley states that the
number of men engaged afloat was from sixteen
54 THE WAR FLEET
to twenty thousand, besides some nine thousand
more as crews, and that the really effective boats
were at least two hundred and thirty in number.
These figures seem enormous, but were probably
the result of careful calculation. In recent years
the war fleet has nearly gone out of being, and
probably not more than fifty boats could be
mustered to-day for an attack by water.
The army in its progress through the country
devastates the crops, and leaves famine behind
it; being accompanied by swarms of camp
followers. The forays of Suna and Mtesa were
'little better than great slave raids, and innumer-
able captives were taken, but in recent years
this has altered for the better, and, guided by
British officers, the Waganda have fought well
and refrained from making slaves. The fighting
strength which could have taken the field since
European officers have been in the country
would, if all sections had been united, have
consisted of from four thousand to six thousand
guns and twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand
spearmen. Kabarega, unlike the King of Uganda,
maintained a strong bodyguard of three thousand
Walasura, always under his own control and under
arms. The King of Uganda, on the other hand,
only kept up a small guard for show under the
“Mujasi.”
The population was estimated by Mr. Stanley
at from two to two and a-half millions, including
the islands of the Lake, as well as all the country
POPULATION 55
that is now part of the Uganda Protectorate,
with the exception of the densely populated
district of Kavirondo, and the remainder of the
country to the east of the Lake. Wilson after
a careful calculation estimated it at five millions
in 1878, and the population of Unyoro at the
same date is given as two and a-half millions,
making seven and a-half in all. Ashe, ten years
later, computes the population at one million for
Uganda. Sir Harry Johnston, in the latest
official report, gives the population of all the
countries included in the Protectorate at
3,8oo, ooo. The Roman Catholic priests made
a careful computation in 1893, which Portal
accepts as approximately correct, and fixed the
population at that date of Uganda proper as
under half a million.
The area of the Protectorate is not officially
estimated, but an unofficial estimate places it
at about 120,000 square miles.
Revenue in old days was collected by the
Wakungu, who could levy what taxes they
pleased, except, as already stated, upon the
peasantry of the exempted estates which,
although situated in their province, belonged
to the king or other great chiefs. It was added
to, however, by the presents brought to the king
by everybody, including the poorest peasant,
who attended court for any purpose whatever
Those who went to war, says Macdonald, paid
no taxes, while those who stayed at home paid
56 REVENUE AND TAXATION
double. Each chief and sub-chief deducted his
recognized share. It would seem also that the
king could at any time raise a special impost on
any particular article—such as ivory, mbugus,
cattle, etc. Forced labour for house-building
and other work was always exacted by the king
and chiefs, in addition to the taxation in kind.
The chief source of revenue, however, arose
from the spoils of war, and the confiscation of
property, either on the supersession of a chief
or in commutation of the death sentence. Such
a ransom usually consisted of a certain number—
say fifty—of every article: slaves, cows, mbugus,
etc. In Unyoro the chiefs and sub-chiefs are
more directly the medium of raising the revenue,
and practise great extortion in the collection.
The natural products of the country are
varied. Foremost in value is ivory, now
decreasing in quantity. It comes chiefly from
Unyoro, Toru, Usoga, and the Wakedi country.
It is almost entirely exported, being given in
payment for the cloths and weapons which have
now become necessaries to the people. A small
quantity is locally made into very handsome
armlets, some four inches deep and of very thin
ivory.
Ornamental skins made into rugs and karosses
would find a ready foreign market. Of these the
more valuable are those of the leopard, of the
silky long-haired goat of Buddu, of otters, of the
black and white plumed “Colobus Guereza "
LOCAL MANUFACTURES 57
monkey, and of the beautiful diminutive
Nanotragus antelope. The skins of all kinds
of game—antelope, zebra, &c.—and of cattle
are also similarly prepared. Even an English
furrier could hardly excel the skill of the
Waganda in this kind of work, or the neatness
with which any flaw is mended, or a similar
coloured patch inserted. Locally furs are used
for clothing, men wearing ox skins, women goat
skins. They are also used as rugs and carpets,
and for the ornamentation of drums, boat prows,
guitars, Sandals, &c. Leather shoes and belts
are also made.
Mbugu, or bark cloth, is a product mainly
for home consumption, but the finest qualities
would no doubt sell readily in Europe. There
are many varieties of the “Ficus,” whose bark
provides material for the mbugu manufacture,
and the quality depends not only upon the
class of tree but upon its age, which must not
exceed three years. A tree may be stripped
two or even three times; the first produces a
coarse texture cloth, the second a finer material.
A cylinder of bark is cut from a tree in one
piece, soaked in water and hammered out with
wooden mallets, the last of the mallets used
being ridged so as to leave a pattern on the
cloth. It is constantly wetted while being
beaten out till it is as thin as cloth, and any
holes or flaws are cut out and a bit inserted
with exquisite neatness and dexterity. The
58 LOCAL MANUFACTURES
bole of the tree is bound round with banana
leaves till a fresh growth of bark has begun.
The Wasoga always dye their mbugus black,
and wear them looped up much like an
undergraduate's gown, with a long pointed stick
projecting from the shoulder. Mbugus are
often scented with the aromatic Mpafu gum.
Many fibre plants exist : aloes, sanseviera,
plantain, etc., which would command a market
abroad. From these and the leaves of the date
palm, and various fine pliant grasses, beautifully
made mats, remarkable for their pliancy, dura-
bility, softness, and artistic skill, are manufactured
in Uganda, and sold in the markets of Unyoro.
Admirable baskets are also made ; some plaited
in concentric rings being water-tight. These
articles, as also sucking tubes for drinking beer,
are often beautifully woven in colours, most
artistically blended, with grasses dyed red,
black, blue, orange, and other tints.
Dyes are extracted from the juices of various
trees of all the colours just named, and also,
says Felkin, a green tint. The most brilliant
and remarkable is, perhaps, the Orange colour,
obtained from the “ornolulira.” Red is also
got from red oxide of iron. The paint-brush
(as also the tooth-brush) of the country consists
of the chewed end of a fibrous stick.
The Waganda excel as workers in iron and as
carpenters. Iron is wrought into soft metal and
made into hoes, spears, cattle bells, knives,
METAL WORK 59
hatchets, and adzes, etc., and, in Unyoro, into
needles. Ashe states that iron is obtained from
Unyoro. It is smelted from either bog iron ore
or clay ironstone.
The smith's bellows are made of two earthen-
ware pots with bags of skin attached, the anvil
is a flat stone, and the hammer a lump of iron.
The art of tempering iron by water appears to
have been known before the advent of
Europeans.
Imported brass and copper are also worked,
and from these wire is drawn, and spears, bells,
and rings are made, and necklets marked with
patterns for different ranks. The art of brazing
and tinning seems to have been introduced by
the Arabs. Under the tuition of Mackay the
Smiths of Uganda quickly learnt how to repair
the lock of a gun, to make folding chairs of rod
iron, and even to convert flint-locks into per-
cussion muskets, and to make metal cartridges.
In woodwork their native products were
carved stools, drums, guitars, beautifully turned
and polished walking-sticks, and milk-pots. In
Unyoro the wooden boat-dishes were admirably
carved. The native tools were few, principally
the axe and adze—the saw being only used for
ivory—and sand-paper, for which a certain leaf is
used. The people, however, quickly learn to
use European tools. Nails were unknown,
everything being tied through holes made by
burning. The principal object of the carpenter's
6o BOAT BUILDING
skill, however, was the wonderfully made boat,
whose dimensions, have already been given.
These boats are far the best in Africa, and are
both picturesque and artistic. The Wavuma
excel in their manufacture. Built up from a
keel consisting of the gigantic bole of a tree,
hollowed and trimmed, the sides are formed of
edged planks, set at an angle outwards and
caulked with fibre and resinous gums. The
prow is swan-necked, something like a gondola,
and decorated with antelope horns or the long-
haired fleeces of the Buddu goat. When finished
they are painted red with burnt iron oxide.
The Wanyoro have only “dug-out” canoes.
From the plastic clays found in the country
excellent earthenware is made, and the designs
of their pipe bowls and utensils are quite
remarkable, but these are to some extent being
superseded by imitations of European crockery.
Large coarse-made pots for holding water and
cooking are made, as also more finished and
artistic water-bowls, coloured red or white.
The pipe-bowls are blackened and glazed and
highly decorated. In Unyoro, at any rate, their
size appears to increase with the rank of the
owner. Macdonald states that the best pottery
comes from the Uvuma islands.
The manufacture of salt is an important
industry. It is obtained by washing the Saline
earth from the hot-springs of Kibero in Unyoro,
on the Albert Lake, and is valued at 500 cowries
PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURES 61
per 25 lbs. It is also extracted from the ashes
of papyrus and reeds, or brought in bulk from
the claret-coloured lake of Katwe, and is exposed
for sale in the markets with small packets of very
pure soda. The process of salt-washing is very
fully described by Emin, and the deposits at
Kibero form a principal source of revenue of
Unyoro.
Soap of excellent quality is made from the
potash lye extracted from the ashes of green
banana rind, mixed with fat. The manufacture
is said to have been introduced from the Sudan.
Candles are also made.
Gums, resins, medicinal drugs, nutmegs,
spices, and valuable woods are found in the
Country, but have not hitherto found more than
a local market, though the resinous incense of
the giant mpafu tree will probably become a
valuable article of export.
Beadwork is executed with extreme neatness
and skill, and the designs and combination of
colours are highly artistic. Giraffe hair is used
to thread the beads, and a pad of grass is often
used on which to form a beaded surface.
Necklaces and cinctures are made of beadwork,
and musical instruments, drums, &c., are often
covered with beautiful designs in beads.
There is no cloth-weaving in the country—as
there is in Yorubaland—the mbugu apparently
satisfied their wants, and the art of weaving was
never discovered. String is made from banana
62 A MUSICAL FOLK
or aloe fibre, and from the sinews of animals :
the Wavuma cord being the best. Limitations of
space forbid a more exhaustive discussion of the
products and manufactures of the Protectorate ;
but the reader who is interested in this subject
may refer to the chapters in my book “Our East
African Empire’ for a more detailed account.
They contain a summary of the reports of many
writers on the subject, and also suggestions
regarding the various economic plants, &c.,
which might with advantage be introduced into
Uganda.
From what has been said of the designs,
colouring, and workmanship of the manu-
factures of the Waganda, it will have been
evident that they have great natural artistic
talent and an eye for beauty of form and colour.
It remains only to say a few words regarding the
music of the country. The Waganda have a
great number of tunes, and they sing both in
solos and choruses, and can improvise readily.
Their songs are of love or war, dirges, or epics
relating the deeds of the national heroes. They
are very fond of music, and play on a large
variety of instruments, and, as has been stated,
readily acquire English tunes and the art of
playing on the piano, &c.
Mtesa is said to have had bands of from
forty to fifty musicians, led by conductors,
Snake and lizard skins are especially affected
in the manufacture of all musical instruments,
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 63
and python skin for drum-heads, while the
performers often wear a goat beard.
Harps and banjos are in use, with strings of
gut and pegs for tightening and tuning them.
With these the Wasoga are the most proficient.
They are decorated with plumes and beads.
There are many wind instruments—flutes and
horns of various types, and in later years
imported bugles, &c. Harmonicons of hollowed
strips of hard resonant wood, bells, rattles,
whistles, and other accessories may be added, as
well as drums of every size, from the huge
national war drums, guarded day and night by
three or four men, to the tiny playthings of
boys, or the long one-ended drum carried under
the arm, with which, and his reed flute, the
traveller beguiles the tedium of his journey.
Their proficiency on the drum is truly
marvellous, and they appear to be almost
able to converse by means of drum notes
Every popular order, from cleaning the roads to
preparing for war, is conveyed by drum-note,
which every child appears to understand. A
somewhat similar use of the drum is found in
West Africa. Every Mkungu has his own drum
and call, but lesser chiefs have not this privilege.
The notes used by the Waganda consist of whole
tones only, but they can readily distinguish
semi-tones.
From the time that the Arabs first penetrated
to Uganda, the people of the countries to the
64 SLAVE TRADE, AND CURRENCY
north of the Victoria Nyanza have been known
to have a remarkable aptitude for trade and
commerce, which perhaps derived a stimulus,
and a more definite direction, from their contact
with the traders from the coast. In return
for the cloth, clothes, guns, powder, brass, and
Copper, the files, needles, knives, cowries, and
other articles that they brought, the Arabs took
to the coast slave girls (especially Wahuma) and
boys, men being too costly to export, and also
ivory. The passion of the people for dress and
finery greatly stimulated this trade. But already
before the death of Mtesa the chiefs had begun
to recognize that the supply of both slaves and
ivory was rapidly decreasing, and that some other
form of wealth must be found wherewith to
purchase what had become necessities to them.
A small trade had existed to the north, but
ceased with the abandonment of Mruli by the
Egyptians. With the advent of the Arabs, the
cowrie was introduced as a medium of currency,
having before only been known as an ornament,
but it never became so recognized a currency in
Unyoro as in Uganda. Five strings, of Ioo
cowries each, are equal to 3s. 6d., or one Maria
Theresa dollar. The Arabs later introduced the
“ dhote” (four yards of cloth) as a standard
of measure equal to ten strings of cowries.
Beads and hoes were also used as currency.
On the arrival of a caravan the owner furnished
a list of his goods, and no one was allowed to
MARKETS 65
buy until the State purchases were concluded,
but the trader had first to make large presents
to the king and chiefs. Mtesa made some few
attempts in the old days to send down ivory to
the coast himself, and in recent years consider-
able trading ventures of this kind have been
undertaken by the Waganda. Mtesa shrewdly
prevented the coast traders from going to
Unyoro as long as he could, so as to keep the
trade in his own hands.
From a very early time markets have been
established throughout Uganda and Unyoro,
and every kind of article is brought for sale by
every variety of tribe and race. This alone
marks a great advance upon the Savage tribes
around them, and few, if any, other Pagan
countries in Africa—except Yorubaland—have
thus established native markets from time
immemorial.
At these markets, under the spreading
“market-trees,” is to be seen every possible
daily requirement. Here the goods of the
coast traders are sold retail, fishermen bring
their fish, villagers bring fruit, vegetables, and
food of all kinds, the butcher retails meat, and
the smith and potter offer their hoes and other
utensils and their earthenware vessels. Even
slaves might be seen exposed for sale. This
system promoted a large internal trade between
country and town, and between the various
outlying provinces of the empire and the
. 6
66 FOREST TREES
capital. Unyoro sent salt, skins, and ivory in
exchange for coast goods; Uganda, mats,
tobacco and pipes; and Usoga sent ivory in
return for the same goods and the beautiful
|Uganda mbugus.
Both Uganda and Unyoro abound with
magnificent timber trees. The giant junipers of the
Mau Escarpmentand the vegetation of Ruwenzori
have already been alluded to. Emin mentions
(among many others) the following as observed
by him in the country: cruciferae, combreteas,
euphorbia (venefica and candelabrum), palms
(phoenix spinosa, borassus, and dholeb—
rare near the equator), acacias (fistula, etc.),
dracaenae, tamarinds, Sycamores, ficus of very
many kinds, and the mpafu, one of which
measured 24 feet in girth and was 8o feet in
height without a bough. He also mentions
entada Sudanica, calladias, amonum, rubiaceae,
spathodea, ocymum, ambaj (herminiera),
solar, aceae and various other trees, shrubs, and
flowers. The baobab (Adamsonia digitata) is not
met with, nor the bamboo, except on the higher
altitudes of Mau and Ruwenzori. Emin speaks
also of vines with heavy grapes in Unyoro, and
of the 6 feet thistles. There are many wild
fruit-bearing trees, and a profusion of flowering
plants and shrubs, but as yet no systematic
collection has been made of them.
The elephant is found in great numbers in
the south of Unyoro, along the slopes of
ANIMAL LIFE 67
Ruwenzori, near the Albert and Albert Edward
Lakes, where large herds were met with by the
writer when traversing that district. They are
also found in great numbers in the north of
Usoga and the north-east of Uganda and
Unyoro. The hippopotamus is found in the
lakes and rivers. Speke killed both white and
black rhinoceros in Karagwe, and Felkin states
that both existed in Unyoro. Speke killed
black rhinoceros in North Uganda. Emin says
that the chimpanzee—which the Unyoro legend
relates to have originated through the trans-
formation of a causelessly jealous husband—
is found in South Unyoro, and he mentions also
baboons, cercopithecus (griseo-viridis and ruber),
and the beautiful colobus guereza. Buffalo,
zebra, wild boar, and many kinds of antelope,
including hartebeeste, Senegalencis, water buck,
kobus cob, reed buck, bush buck, eland, oreas,
and Speke's antelope are met with. Otters,
crocodiles, rats (including the large edible
rodent), pythons, Snakes and lizards, etc., are
found, and innumerable birds, among which
are vultures, parrots, kites, the fish eagle, guinea
fowl, flamingo, Cranes, storks, ibis, herons, gulls,
ducks, geese, and infinite varieties of small
birds. }
Insect life abounds, and fleas, unknown in
the Sudan, appear in quantities in these
countries. Mosquitos and grey ticks, and .
since 1892 the jigger, are among the pests of
68 DISEASES AND REMEDIES
the land. The jigger appears to have slowly
migrated from the west coast across the
continent, and has already reached the coast,
whence it will, doubtless, find its way to India.
Butterflies and other beautiful and harmless
insects are equally abundant.
Confluent Small-pox is the most fatal disease
of Uganda. The pustules are isolated, and are
opened and smeared with sesame oil. The
next most terrible disease is the bubonic plague,
which begins by swellings under the arm-pits,
and is usually fatal in twenty-four hours. It
appears frequently as an epidemic, and carries
off enormous numbers. Dropsy, measles, rheu-
matism, ague, bronchitis, ophthalmia, epilepsy
and temporary insanity are named by Wilson as
indigenous diseases, as well as the more doubtful
ones of cholera and leprosy. Sciatica and
lumbago are treated by the application of a
red-hot iron. Malarial fever is not uncommon,
and Felkin attributes it to a change of place.
Blindness and ophthalmia are rare, though
Europeans are much attacked by the latter.
The very prevalent skin diseases may be
attributed to the change of diet consequent
on the death of the cattle from rinderpest.
Cupping and bleeding is much practised, small
cows' or goats' horns being used with a hole
bored in the pointed end through which the air
is exhausted by suction, and the orifice then
sealed with wax. Medicines which induce
DISEASES AND REMEDIES 69
perspiration are also used, especially as
remedies for temporary insanity. Emin relates
that guinea worm, so prevalent in the Sudan
and most parts of Africa, is almost unknown
from Lat. 3° N. to the Equator, as also is hydro-
phobia. Syphilis is common, and to this cause
is probably due the frequent loss of pigment in
the skin. Caustic herbs are employed as
remedies. Felkin says this disease was intro-
duced by the Arabs.
CHAPTER II
NATIONAL LEGENDS AND
EARLY HISTORY
NE form of the legendary origin of
Uganda is that one Kintu (identified
by Wilson as Ham) arrived in the country,
bringing with him one wife, one cow, one
sheep, one potato, and one banana root. The
country was then empty, and Kintu took up his
residence at Magungu on the Mwerango River,
midway between Uganda and Unyoro, rapidly
stocking the land with the descendants and
produce of what he had brought with him.
Kintu now sent a party with flocks and herds
to Unyoro proper, and another to Uganda, the
former taking the potato, the latter the banana,
which have consequently become the national
foods of the respective peoples who sprang from
these progenitors. Kintu loathed bloodshed,
LEGENDARY HISTORY 7I
and could not tolerate the destruction even of
an insect. Wilson relates that it is said that,
when trouble came upon him, the animals to
whom he had been kind came to assist him,
each in its way, and extricated him from his
difficulties. His descendants, however, waxed
quarrelsome and turbulent. Fighting, drunken-
ness, and great immorality and cruelty marked
the era which followed. Kintu, in disgust, arose
one night, and taking the original of each that
he had brought, disappeared, no one knew
whither. Chwa, his son, succeeded him, and he
and every successor prosecuted a never-ending
search for Kintu, who was supposed to be
immortal, and in hiding somewhere; but without
success, until the time of Maanda (according to
Stanley some twenty odd generations later).
Meanwhile Kimera, the giant king, had intro-
duced hunting with dogs, and Nakivingi, the
warrior prince, aided by the flying chief,
Kibuga, had conquered the Wanyoro. Maanda,
led by a peasant, to whom the whereabouts of
Kintu had been revealed in a dream, penetrated
to the hiding-place in a dense forest, where he
saw the white-bearded patriarch, surrounded by
others like himself. Maanda had been warned
to come alone, but his faithful prime minister
had tracked his steps, fearing harm might befall
the king. Maanda, enraged at the discovery,
slew him with his spear, whereupon Kintu and
his companions vanished for ever. Maanda's
72 LEGENDARY HISTORY
great grandson was the conqueror of Usoga,
aided by the chief Wakunguru-the Goliath or
Samson of the Waganda—who slew six hundred
Wasoga each day for three days with his own
hand in single combat. His great grandson in
turn conquered the Wakedi tribe to the north
of Usoga, a land of lakes to which the Waganda
transported their canoes overland, and, Sur-
rounding their enemies, fired their villages with
red-hot arrows. These fierce warriors had
powerful dogs and wore armour, which the
arrows and spears of the Waganda could not
penetrate. So the Waganda rushed upon them
and seized them with their hands and bound
them, but were in turn attacked and routed by
the dogs. In the end, however, they conquered.
To Kimenya succeeded Suna, his son, about
A.D. 1836, and reigned till 1860. Such was the
legend as related to Stanley.
Casati's version is that Uganda was conquered
by a handsome warrior, whose exploits reached
the ears of “the queen,” and that, having
poisoned her husband and married the youth,
she had two sons, who eventually became kings
of Uganda and Unyoro.
According to Speke, Uganda was of old a
subservient country, and was reckoned “the
garden of Unyoro.” Its people were but slaves
until a hunter from Buddu, by name Uganda,
set up a kingdom ; but Buddu remained part of
Unyoro, Uganda gave his name to the country,
MORE LEGENDS 73
but himself assumed that of Kimera. He
arrived with hunting dogs and a wife, and
hence the emblems of Uganda remained a
woman, a dog, a spear, and a shield. This
legend resembles the first, Kimera the Giant
being identical with Kimera (or Uganda),
his predecessors being mythical personages
common to both Unyoro and Uganda. Other
legends are also related of Kintu by Macdonald
and others. Wilson assigns thirty to forty
successors to Kintu before Mtesa, but Speke
makes him only the seventh of his line, and he
and Emin assign the antiquity to Unyoro—
Kabarega being 16th King—while Uganda is
but a parvenu kingdom. Of the history of
the surrounding countries no record has been
preserved, nor have any of the legends of their
origin been discovered by travellers. Emin
relates, as a legend of Unyoro, that all the people
of that country were destroyed by “the Great
Magician,” who then sent a man and a woman
“with tails.” They had one son and two
daughters. One of the latter gave birth
to a chameleon, the other to a giant. The
chameleon was ill-tempered, and so persecuted
the giant that the Great Magician took him
to the sky, where he became the moon. The
Sun—so the tale ran—was peopled by giants,
and the stars were made as watchmen. The
chameleon and its descendants peopled the
earth. Their tails were lost and their colour
turned to black.
74 HISTORICAL TIMES
Suna, the father of Mtesa, is the first
historical personage. He was a cruel despot
whose executions and mutilations caused the
land to flow with blood, but withal a brave
warrior, hospitable, and extremely fond of
dogs. Stanley relates the legends of his wars,
of which that against the inhabitants of Vuma
and other islands in the lake, aided by the
coast tribes of Usoga, was the most desperate.
Suna employed five hundred canoes, and the
brave enemy only yielded when surrounded
and starved. They were conveyed by
thousands to the mainland, where they were
placed in an enclosure and treated with great
courtesy till, on a signal, Suna's army fell
upon them and massacred the unarmed
throng to a man. Fired by the success of the
king, chief after chief undertook a war of his
own ; the Pokino of Buddu subjugated
Ankoli ; Setuba re - conquered Unyoro ;
Kasindula reduced the turbulent confedera-
tions of Usoga ; and finally Suna himself
defeated the allied kingdoms of Usongala and
the neighbouring countries. Each fresh
conquest brought thousands of captives,
mostly women, to Uganda, and the vassal
kings rendered tribute to Suna. Obviously
these accounts must not be taken too literally.
Probably successful forays were conducted in
the countries named, but they were never
conquered in the proper sense of the term.
HISTORICAL TIMES 75
Suna was succeeded by his son Mtesa, who
was king of Uganda at the time that it first
became known to Europeans.
CHAPTER III
ARAB AND EUROPEAN
DISCOVERERs
ASSING from the legendary history of this
people to its “discovery" in modern
times, we find that prior to the advent of any
European in those countries, Arab and Beluch
traders from the East Coast had penetrated to
Uganda in the first half of the century, and
had brought thence reports of a vast lake and
a wonderful aboriginal civilization, as well as
exaggerated accounts of its enormous wealth
and power. Prominent among these in
comparatively recent times was Ahmet ibn
Ibrahim, whom Emin states to have been in
the country in the time of Suna, and of whom
Wilson remarks that he had been twenty years
in the country prior to his own arrival in 1877.
He, however, was not the first, if we are to
credit Wilson, who asserts that Arab traders
had at that time traded for sixty years with
ARAB AND BELUCH TRADERS 77
Uganda; which would place their advent about
the beginning of the century. Musa Mzuri also
had established a trading depôt in Southern
Buddu under the aegis of Ruwanika of Karagwe,
and though Speke relates that in 1862 this
depôt had long existed, the honour of being the
first foreigner to penetrate to Uganda has
probably been wrongly assigned to Musa. A
Beluch, named Esau, was also among the
earliest arrivals, but, having lost all his goods
through the extortions practised upon him, he
was ashamed to return, and settled on the
borders of Uganda, where he became one of
the Wakungu or great chiefs. Speke found that
Musa's depôt had been abandoned in conse-
quence of the oppression of the Waganda, but
there is no doubt that traders had continued to
visit the country, though maintaining no depôt
there ; for Speke was at once conducted on
arrival at the capital to the Arab camping
ground, and he constantly refers to them as
his precursors, from whom he had derived
much information concerning the country.
After Speke's visit, the love of firearms which
he had taught to the king, and the desire to
possess cloth and other goods, such as Speke
had brought, induced Mtesa to extend a more
cordial welcome to coast traders. It was not,
however, till 1872 that, according to Emin, any
Arab succeeded in penetrating direct to Unyoro.
In July, 1858, Speke, who had accompanied
78 ARRIVAL OF EUROPEANS
Burton from the east coast and discovered
Tanganyika, left his leader in Unyanyembe,
proceeded with his permission to the north,
and “discovered ” the vast lake, which the
Arabs called Ukerewe, which Speke recognized
as the probable source of the Nile, and named
the “Victoria Nyanza.” Burton combated his
theory, and on their return to England much
controversy arose on the subject. In April,
1860, Speke, with Grant, started to explore the
lake and the sources of the Nile, and early in
1862 reached Uganda, which had not so far
been seen by any white man.
The Arabs, as we have seen, had long traded
in ivory and slaves with the country, and they
endeavoured to prevent Speke's progress by
spreading reports that the Europeans dealt in
magic, and were cannibals. He was, however,
able to buy goods from the Arabs at the south of
the lake, without which he would hardly have
been able to continue his journey, and, after
receiving great hospitality from Ruwanika of
Karagwe, he reached Uganda, where he was
received by Mtesa with the greatest delight.
His surprise was great when, emerging from
among the naked savages of the south, he
found himself among a people of comparatively
high civilization and fully clothed, who looked
on his donkey as indecent without trousers, and
whose social customs, system of rule, and
ceremonials were of the complicated and
MTESA'S CRUEL DESPOTISM 79
advanced kind already described. In Uganda
Speke was detained by interminable delays, but
at last he gained permission to leave for Unyoro,
to which country he had already sent a mes-
senger from Karagwe. We have seen that Speke
was enchanted with Uganda, this “wonderful
country—a picture of quiescent beauty with a
boundless sea in the background,” but his
residence with Mtesa disclosed to him the
despotic cruelty of the king's rule. Apart from
the wholesale butcheries demanded by the
“Kiwendo,” or sacrifice to ancestors, people
were wantonly killed to try a rifle, or at the
whim of the despot, and every emissary of the
king, or armed foray proceeding at his behest,
looted in the king's name till the land was
devastated by misrule. Speke found the same
despotism in Unyoro, but Kamrasi was of a
milder disposition, and executions were rare.
Neither in ceremonial, in the artistic beauty of
their houses, in cleanliness, or in polish of
manners, could Unyoro rival Uganda, which
then as now was immeasurably in advance of
Unyoro in development. Kamrasi, who was a
persistent beggar, detained Speke till November,
1862, when he at last got away, and, sailing
down the Kafu to the Nile, crossed the Chopi
and Kidi countries, and finally reached
Gondokoro, where he found Baker. That
traveller had arrived from Egypt after innum-
erable difficulties, and he went on to Kamrasi's
8O BAKER AND KABAREGA
capital, and thence to the lake Mwutan Nzige,
which he “discovered ” and christened the
“Albert.” He also traced part of the Nile, from
the “Murchison Falls '' to its entrance into
and exit from the Albert. He and Mrs. Baker
suffered much from the exactions and subse-
quent hostility of Kamrasi. In 1872 Baker
invaded Unyoro, with a view to annexing it
to the Sudan provinces. Kabarega, he says,
endeavoured to destroy his army by poisoned
beer, and Baker with great difficulty retreated
to the Nile, where he allied himself with
Rionga, Kabarega's brother, with whom the
latter was at war. It would seem that Rionga,
who ruled in Eastern Unyoro, had solicited the
aid of Mtesa to attack Kabarega, but the
assistance not having arrived in time he
accepted Baker's overtures, and made a
blood brotherhood, which he never broke,
and always remained friendly to Europeans.
Another brother, Anfina, lived north of the
Nile, and Kabarega waged a chronic war with
both. Anfina is described as a thorough
gentleman who had adopted Arab dress,
and lived in much state. Kabarega finally
conquered him and became Supreme king in
1879. The next Europeans to visit these
countries were Mr. Stanley—then an American
citizen—and M. Linant de Bellefronds, an
emissary of Gordon's, who, coming respectively
from the south and the north, met at Mtesa’s
ARRIVAL OF STANLEY 8I
capital. Stanley had been sent in August,
1874, in command of an Anglo-American
expedition to solve, if possible, the contro-
versies which had arisen between those who
shared the theories of Speke, on the one hand,
and of Burton on the other, regarding the extent
of the Lake, and the origin of the Nile. He
arrived at the south of the Lake in March, 1875,
by the route Speke had taken, through what is
now German East Africa, and, putting together
his boat, the “Lady Alice,” he went round
by the eastern shore, and was attacked off
Usoga by the Wavuma. Escaping, he reached
Uganda, and was received with great pomp by
the king and his chiefs, who had come down
to meet him. The king's partiality towards
strangers was (to Stanley's great good fortune)
reinforced by a dream of the Queen-mother of
the coming of a white man.
Since Speke's time, a Mohammedan mis-
sionary, Muleh-bin-Salim, had preached Islam,
and Mtesa was a nominal convert to that
creed. As the king and chiefs could therefore
speak Swaheli, Stanley found himself able to
converse in that language, and he set himself
to convert Mtesa to Christianity, and was
apparently Successful. After a few weeks'
residence Stanley left Uganda in April, having
first sent letters appealing to the people of
England to make Uganda a field for missionary
enterprise. By the light of later events the
7
82 STANLEY AND MTESA
terms of this appeal are noteworthy. He asked
that the mission should be industrial, medical,
and practical, belonging to no sect or nation.
Returning in August with the intention of
reaching the Albert Lake with the assistance of
Mtesa, Stanley found the King at war with the
Wavuma, with an army estimated at a quarter
of a million. The fighting was protracted, but
was at length Satisfactorily concluded by a
device suggested by Stanley ; and in November
he set out along the southern frontier with a
large Waganda escort, and, passing through
Northern Ankoli, reached the shores of a lake
which he mistook for the Albert. The people
were very hostile, and the Waganda, fearing
their numbers, decided to retreat, and Stanley
returned to the Lake and left the country,
never to see it again until, thirteen years later,
he traversed Ankoli on his way back from the
expedition for the so-called Relief of Emin
Pasha. He left with Mitesa as scribe and
teacher a “Mission boy” named Dallington.
M. de Bellefronds had also made but a short
stay in Uganda, having come, it was under-
stood, to endeavour to open up commercial
relations between Uganda and the Sudan.
In this same year (1876), Colonel Gordon,
the Governor General, had annexed the
northern portion of Unyoro, namely, the
provinces of Shifalu and Magungo, enclosed
by the bend of the Somerset Nile and the
GORDON'S ANNEXATIONS 83
Albert Lake, and as far south as the latitude
of Mruli. Egyptian garrisons were located at
Magungo, Fodi, Fauvera, Mruli, Kasuga,
Lundu, Masindi and Kiroto, and Emin had
accompanied Gordon to these places, as well
as to Mahagi and other stations on the west
of the Lake in the Lur country, which was
likewise subject to Kabarega, who had suc-
ceeded Kamrasi as King of Unyoro. These
Egyptian forts were later withdrawn, whereupon
Kabarega is said to have massacred all the
people who were friendly to the invaders.
Besides M. de Bellefronds, Colonel Gordon
had also sent Colonel Long to Mtesa's capital,
and he now directed Emin (May, 1877) to pro-
ceed to Mpara, the capital of Unyoro, and to
endeavour, by friendly negotiation, to put an
end to the war and the reprisals on the part of
Kabarega, which had arisen in consequence of
the annexations in Northern Unyoro.
Leaving Mruli in September, 1877, Emin
reached Kabarega, by whom he was courteously
received, and whom he describes as well-man-
nered, dignified, and hospitable. Kabarega, he
says, “gave him a detailed account of all the
events that had happened during Baker's
visit—a curiously different account from that
given in Ismailia.” No traveller had reached
the capital of Unyoro on a friendly visit since
the time of Baker, and the country had been
unvisited for all these years except by the
84 EMIN VISITS KABAREGA
aggressive armies of Gordon in the north, and
the expedition of Stanley, escorted by their
traditional enemies the Waganda, in the south.
Emin spoke the languages both of Unyoro and
Uganda, and Kabarega also spoke Sudan-
Arabic. Emin was able therefore to converse
with ease, and concluded his mission satis-
factorily, and acquired a marvellous amount of
information regarding the customs, traditions,
religion, botany, and geology of the country,
its produce, and diseases, some of which we
have already laid under contribution.
Kabarega was at this time supreme despot of
a vast area of country, and, notwithstanding
Mr. Stanley's assertions of the conquest of
Unyoro by Suna and Mtesa, Emin maintains
that the Kabaka of Uganda had no claim to
suzerainty over that country, and treated its
king as an equal, sending presents from time to
time. Speke also infers the complete indepen-
dence of Unyoro, between which and Uganda
there was a chronic feud. That Kabarega had
not retaliated for raids made into his country,
is accounted for by the fact that he was depen-
dent upon Mtesa for all trade, since coast
goods could only reach him through Uganda.
Stanley's own account of his abortive journey
to the Unyoro frontier tends to confirm this
view. Macdonald, however, states that the
King of Unyoro, to show his vassalage, was
installed by an envoy of Mtesa's.
O'DTRAGE ON CASATI 85
Emin remained in the country from Septem-
ber to November, and then left for Mruli. He
appears to have sent Casati to represent him,
but that officer was seized and condemned to
death, escaping naked to the Lake shore, where
he was picked up by one of Emin's steamers.
No reprisals were ever made for this outrage.
From Mruli, Emin set out almost immediately
on a second trip to Uganda. There he stayed
from November, 1877, to April, 1878, meeting
the Rev. C. T. Wilson, who had already
established a Mission in the country. He
marched back via Fauvera and Kiroto, through
North Unyoro to Magungo. Emin's first visit to
Uganda, in company with Mir Aga, had been
undertaken between June and September, 1876.
Though he has not left quite so full an account
of Uganda as of Unyoro, he recorded a great
amount of useful information.
CHAPTER IV
KING MWANGA AND
THE THREE CREEDs
EN years later, in 1887, Emin again
visited Kabarega, and during the
interval no one except Casati had attempted
to penetrate to his capital. Stanley's appeal
to the philanthropists of England, published
in November, 1875, led to the dispatch by the
Church Missionary Society, in the spring of
1876, of a mission to the country. Lieutenant
Shergold Smith, R.N., the leader, and the
Rev. C. T. Wilson reached Uganda in
July, 1877. The former only stayed a month,
and then left to bring up O’Neill and
Dr. Smith, who had been left at the south of
the Lake. Dr. Smith had already died, and
Shergold Smith and O'Neill were killed on
FIRST PROTESTANT MISSION 87
an island in the Lake; so that of the whole
party only one remained. Wilson, the
first missionary, resided for six months in
Uganda, where, as we have seen, he met
Emin during his second visit to Mtesa, in
December, 1877. He then left in the “Daisy”
—a mission boat which the party had
brought with them, and which had greatly
facilitated their passage of the Lake—to
enquire regarding the murder of his com-
panions, and returned at the end of March,
1878. After a further residence of two and a
half months, he again left in Search of Mackay,
and they returned together in November,
1878. He remained but three weeks, and
then, leaving Mackay in Uganda, again set
out to meet a further party of missionaries
who were coming by the Nile route. The
party consisted of the Rev. G. Litchfield, the
Rev. C. W. Pearson, and Dr. Felkin, and,
accompanied by Wilson, reached Uganda
in February, 1879. The following June,
Wilson and Felkin left to escort three
ambassadors from Mtesa to England. The
king, however, unknown to the missionaries,
Selected mere slaves as envoys, instead
of chiefs. Wilson, in all, had resided
thirteen months in the country, and Felkin
but three. Almost simultaneously with
the arrival of Mr. Litchfield's party, two
French Roman Catholic Missionaries, Père
88 ARRIVAL OF ROMAN CATHOLICs
Lourdel and Frère Amans, arrived to solicit
permission to establish a Roman Catholic
Mission in Uganda. This granted, they
returned to the south of the Lake to fetch
their companions, Pères Girault and Barbot.
This mission, arranged by his predecessor, was
sanctioned by Pope Leo XIII., immediately
after his accession, as a branch of the White
Fathers of Algeria. In 188o the Pope created
it a Provicariat Apostolic, and in 1883 a
Vicariat with Père Lavinhac as its first Bishop.
Thus by the middle of 1879 there were two
missions, Protestant and Roman Catholic,
established in the country, the former repre-
sented by Mackay, Litchfield and Pearson, the
latter by Pères Lourdel, Girault, Barbot and
Amans. From this date began that deplorable
rivalry which was vehemently denounced, as
early as 1886, by the Russian traveller, Junker,
and which later led to so many troubles ;
while side by side, and hostile to both, was the
religion of Islam, introduced and taught by the
Arabs prior to the advent of the Christian
teachers.
A great change for the better had been
wrought in Mtesa, says Stanley, by the precepts
of Islam, which he nominally abandoned for the
teaching of Stanley. Later he seems to have
again inclined to the Mohammedan faith, but
he discarded it when he found that his own
chiefs would not share the king's meat unless
THE CONFLICT OF CREEDS 89
it had been killed with the rites prescribed by
the Koran, and when his Arab teachers insisted
on his undergoing the ordeal of circumcision,
which was contrary to the strict custom and
tradition of Uganda. To mark his displeasure
he killed one hundred youths who had
submitted to the rite. Wilson again began to
teach him, but the advent of the French Fathers
introduced yet a new creed, and Mtesa, though
always a keen and interested disputant in
religious discussions, adopted the attitude of an
amused cynic and died a Pagan, weary of the
conflict of the teachers of the three creeds to
gain him as a proselyte.
Great changes had taken place in Uganda in
the years that had passed since Speke entered
the country. The mbugu dress had been
abandoned by the king and chiefs in favour of
Arab clothes, and M. de Bellefronds and
Stanley found Mtesa clothed in gold embroidery,
reclining on a rich carpet and cushions, with an
elaborate throne, an Arab bejewelled sword,
and a guard of Sudanese soldiers. The spear
and shield were laid aside for the gun, and
Wilson estimates that already the Waganda
possessed some two thousand guns, while Mtesa
ceaselessly begged firearms from every visitor,
and bought them from every trader. In 1882,
owing to the hostility of Mtesa, who, for the
moment, was enamoured of Islam, the French
fathers deemed it prudent to withdraw from the
90 THE DEATH OF MTESA
country for a time, but the English remained,
and were reinforced in 1883 by Messrs. Ashe
and Flaherty. Mtesa died in the autumn of
1884, and, contrary to the custom of Uganda,
was buried in a huge grave. His body was
placed in three coffins, enclosed one in the
other, made by Mackay, who appears to have
acted as a head mechanic to the king, and to
have undertaken any jobs which were beyond
the skill of the local “Fundis,” to whom,
moreover, he taught a great deal both of
carpentry and Smith work, including, it is
regrettable to add, the repair of the mechanism
of guns.
Vast quantities of cloth and other goods were
deposited in Mtesa's grave, to the value, says
Ashe, of some 24, 15,000, and over it was erected
a very large hut in which the guardians of the
dead kept watch.
Mtesa was a remarkable man. He is de-
scribed by Speke as being of restless energy, fond
of taking long walks attended by all his chiefs,
harem, messengers, pages, and musicians innu-
merable. His great object was to make Uganda
the greatest of countries, and himself the greatest
of kings. For this reason he welcomed
Europeans, recognizing that their knowledge,
and the arms and goods they brought, would
aggrandise his country and add to his prestige.
But withal he was vain and peevish and a most
bloody despot. Wilson describes him as clever,
MTESA’S CHARACTER 9I
and able to read and write Arabic, and to speak
many African dialects, especially Swaheli, in
which he was most fluent. His questions and
criticisms of the teaching of the missionaries
were most shrewd. Stanley, who was greatly
impressed by him, dubs him the “Foremost
man in Africa,” and describes him as clever,
dignified, able and courteous, “with wonderful
lambent eyes, which gave a strange beauty to
his face.” Doubtless the influence of the new
religion, and his own increased age and
experience, had improved him, but Emin, who
saw him both before and shortly after Stanley's
visit, did not by any means concur in this
estimate, though admitting many good traits in
his character. In the latter years of his life he
suffered greatly, and was unable to take exercise
as of old. He became more merciful, and
impatient of many of the old forms and
restrictions. Even in the days of his bloodiest
excesses Speke found an excuse for him in his
utter ignorance of restraint and of the value of
life, and says that his acts were dictated by
impulse rather than from any love of witnessing
pain or thirst for blood. Unlike the Waganda,
he never drank anything but the mildest pombe,
and never smoked. Felkin says that he had
one hundred and fifty children and seven
hundred wives, and that five hundred people
were sacrificed at his grave.
The hostility of the Arab Mohammedans and
92 SUCCESSION OF MWANGA
the ill-will of the chiefs made the position of
the Englishmen—the French had left Uganda
—for a time precarious, on the death of Mtesa,
but there was no "anarchy, and Mwanga was
elected king by the chiefs. He was at this
time (1884) eighteen years old, and was chosen
on account of his great likeness to Mtesa, which
left no doubt of his paternity. The young king
Soon began to play the part of Rehoboam, and
whereas in the days of Mtesa there had usually
been some show of accusation and condemna-
tion, or at least of cause, for any arbitrary
seizure and execution, there was now ab-
solutely no security for life.
The influence of the Protestant missions had
extended greatly, and hundreds now numbered
themselves as “Readers,” and were baptized,
among whom were many chiefs. The king
and chiefs became suspicious of this new
power, and their hostility was secretly encour-
aged by the Arabs, who feared that the white
men would eventually supersede them in their
trade, as they had already, by their teaching,
affected the trade in slaves and the spread of
the Mohammedan religion. Many causes
added to this suspicion; notably the conquests
of Gordon in the north, and the constant threat
of annexation both of Uganda and Unyoro by
Egypt, while the fact that letters for Emin
were sent through the missionaries in Uganda
appeared to identify them with the white men
SUSPICION AGAINST EUROPEANS 93
in the north. Ashe also lays great stress on the
point that, as the first missionaries had brought
official letters of introduction from Government,
and Wilson and Felkin had escorted back
envoys to England, while the Foreign Office
had sent presents and letters by their hands,
the missionaries were in the eyes of king
and people regarded as officials. The Consul-
General at Zanzibar wrote to correct this
impression, whereupon, says Ashe, Mwanga
thought they had been guilty of fraud, while
the missionaries themselves protested that the
consul’s letters had jeopardised their position.
A further cause of suspicion lay in the general
advance of Europeans on all sides. To Gordon's
annexations in the north was added the news of
the German occupation of Usagara, and the
fighting at the coast, which seemed to the
Waganda to be the beginning of the white
man's conquest; and finally, and worst of all,
the news of Thomson's expedition to the Lake
from Mombasa, from which side tradition had
always said Uganda would be conquered.
Thus in every direction the white men seemed
to be in league.
Early in 1885, when the French priests re-
turned to Uganda, the missionaries were jostled
and even seized, and a rigorous persecution
of their followers began. Native Christians
were burnt and tortured, but the effect
was only to increase the number of “readers.”
94 MURDER OF HANNINGTON
For a time the rigour of persecution ceased,
only to break out again with greater vehemence
than ever after the murder of Bishop Hannington
in October. This ill-fated missionary had most
unfortunately elected to enter Uganda by the
forbidden route, through Usoga, and he and his
following were put to death at Luba's village,
on the east of the Nile, by Mwanga's order.
His bones were exhumed from Kavirondo,
where they had been buried, and taken to
Uganda by Bishop Tucker and buried there
in 1893. Ashe states that Hannington had not
been warned of his danger, that the French
priests, when asked for advice by Mwanga, had
said that they thought it unadvisable to allow
him to come, and that Mwanga's intention of
sending to convey him by water to the south of
the Lake was frustrated by the rapidity of the
bishop's movements. The caravan he had left
under the care of a native pastor in Kavirondo
was magnified into an army of invasion, and
Mackay, who in good faith had denied that he
was in Usoga, was regarded as an accomplice in
the design. The position of the Europeans was
very precarious, and Mackay only evaded an
order which had been given for his murder by
means of a warning from a friend.
The lives of the Europeans who had been
killed had been unavenged, and Mwanga openly
scoffed at the old idea of the inviolability of a
white man's life. The Christian converts were
THE YEAR OF MARTYRDOMS 95
burnt, after mutilation and torture, in great
numbers ; but they shewed extraordinary
heroism, and in many cases openly declared
their faith and refused to escape, while others
came forward to be baptised in spite of the fate
which awaited them. The Arabs secretly did
all they could to prejudice the English, and
represented to Mwanga that Mackay was
wanted at the coast for a crime, in reference
to an incident which Ashe describes as an
unfortunate and much-misrepresented occur-
rence, which had taken place on Mackay's
journey to Uganda. Mackay therefore left the
country, to reside at the south of the lake, and
Ashe left soon after.
Mr. Gordon now took charge of the mission,
arriving in August, 1887, and was joined
by Mr. Walker in the following April. During
1886—the year of martyrdoms—Mwanga had
waged a war against Unyoro, and Junker, the
Russian traveller, had passed through Uganda.
He offered a protest in the name of humanity
against the butcheries, and described the
corpses he had seen in the roads on his way to
the capital. Not content with his Christian
victims—whom the Namasole, to her credit,
befriended by refusing to give up the “readers”
of her retinue—Mwanga made tours through
Singo, Chagwe, and Buddu, looting women and
Cattle, and giving them to his dissolute
favourites, treating his own country as though it
96 MWANGA AND THE CREEDS
were an enemy's, till he had made himself
detested by all the peasantry. Then a new
whim of despotic tyranny entered his brain, and
he gave orders for the enlargement of his pond,
ordering all the chiefs to be present at the work,
and fining them heavily for any supposed
apathy or lack of zeal. Bishop Parker,
Hannington's successor, had arrived in 1888 at
the south of the Lake with a party of mission-
aries, and wrote to Mwanga. The king read
his letter as a challenge, and determined to
resist the supposed invasion of his country by
the bishop and his party. It is even alleged
that he had decided on the murder of Gordon
and Walker, but Bishop Parker's death induced
him to forego his intention.
Mwanga, always suspicious, now (1888)
began to suspect and fear his Mohammedan
advisers. They, in their turn, despised the
heathen king, and refused to do even their
lawful work. The chiefs who were Christians
denounced the vile practices carried on at
court by the king, and further irritated Mwanga
by building fine houses. Taking counsel,
therefore, of the Pagan party, the king
determined to rid himself, once for all, of all
followers of the new religions. Giving out that
he wished to destroy the Lubare, he ordered all
the riflemen to assemble on the lake shore, to
take boat for the island of Bugala, where the
votaries of the Lubare lived. As the Pagan
MWANGA PLOTS WITH PAGANS 97
party had retained the spear, the traditional
weapon of Uganda, this summons affected
chiefly the “readers.” The chiefs of the three
creeds got warning that it was the intention of
Mwanga to land them on a desert island and
leave them to starve. The principal Moslem
chiefs, pleading sickness, remained behind, but
the head chiefs of the Protestants and Roman
Catholics came, with their following, and the
Moslems under a lesser chief. Their fears were
confirmed the evening before the projected
expedition, for the king beat the “Kiwendo'
drum, the signal for the holocausts of victims to
appease the manes of the ancestors. They
determined to resist, and, when the king
embarked, the majority refused to follow, and
would indeed have killed the king, who
threatened to fire on them, had not Kagwa
interposed.
Mwanga returned to his capital to take
counsel of the old Katikiro, who had opposed
his plot, but found that he too had turned
against him. With a few pages he awaited the
coming of the Protestants and Mohammed-
ans (the Catholics held aloof), who had
already beaten the royal drum and declared
Kiwewa king. There was no resistance; a
page was shot, and Mwanga fled unpursued to
the Lake, with a following of women and boys.
Even these deserted him, and, with his own
boat's crew only, after having been attacked
8
98 MWANGA DEPOSED
several times on his voyage down the Lake, he
arrived at the south end, and became a prisoner
in the hands of the Arabs, whence he escaped
to the French fathers, at Bukumbi, who
received him kindly. Kiwewa, being the eldest
son, was ineligible for the throne and unwilling
to assume it, but the readers, breaking through
old customs, forced the doubtful privilege upon
him, and in September, 1888, he became king.
A “French * chief was made Katikiro, an
“English "one Mukwenda—for so the factions
began now to be called—while the Mohammed-
ans took the chiefships of Kimbugwe and
Kangao. The old Katikiro retired for safety to
Mtesa's tomb.
Kiwewa promised entire liberty in religion,
and a milder rule, and for a brief space all
seemed to promise well. The Mohammedans,
however, were angry that the Katikiro had been
chosen from the Christian party, and they
persuaded the king that the “English "faction
would depose him and elect a queen, since
their teachers served a queen. They formed a
plot to murder the Christian chiefs, and, taking
them unawares, killed many. The Christians
fought, but were unprepared, and the Moham-
medans, aided by the Arabs, put them to flight
and sacked the missions. The Europeans were
thrown into prison, and for a week their fate
was uncertain, but it was finally decided to
banish them from the land, They were
EXPULSION OF MISSIONARIES 99
conducted to the lake, and placed on board the
mission boat in a state of destitution. The
party, consisting of Pères Lavinhac, Lourdel,
Denoit and Amans, with Messrs. Walker and
Gordon, were wrecked, but managed to repair
their boat, and, after many vicissitudes, reached
the south of the lake.
The Christian factions took refuge with Ntali,
of Ankole. They were joined by many peasants
and others discontented with the Mohammedan
rule and the enforced rite of circumcision. The
king himself would not submit to the rite,
whereupon the chiefs plotted to carry it out by
force. Kiwewa, hearing of this, pretended to
consent, but when the three leading chiefs
entered his private house, at his invitation, to
perform the rite, he slew two of them with his
own hand. A gun fired by a boy gave the
alarm, and others rushed in, and Kiwewa fled.
His younger brother was now proclaimed king.
A battle ensued, in which Kiwewa was defeated
and taken prisoner, and the new king, to secure
his throne, killed all his rivals, and many others.
Kiwewa had reigned but three or four months,
during which brief space the missions had
enjoyed a period of complete freedom and
peace ; but the accession of Kaluna inaugurated
a fanatical Mohammedan rule, and the rite of
circumcision was enforced upon the peasantry,
so that the king became greatly hated.
The Christians, as we have related, had been
t
º tº ſº e
* * *
* * *
&
º
:
* {
:
*d
:
:
IOO MWANGA RETURNING
expelled, and were in refuge with Ntali, for
whom they worked and raided, in return for the
shelter he afforded. Even in their extremity
and common misfortunes the “English" and
“French '' parties could not agree, and were at
one time on the point of coming to blows.
Famine threatened, and it was proposed to
send envoys to Mwanga at Bukumbi, offering
to support him in an effort to regain his throne.
This was early in 1889. The French fathers
supported their faction in this proposal, which
was opposed by Mackay and the English. The
accounts given by the English and French
missionaries of the events of this time do not
tally, but it appears that, with the aid of Stokes,
a trader who lent his boat and provided arms
and ammunition in return for liberal promises
of payment in ivory, it was decided to adopt the
plan; and in May, 1889, Mwanga set out by
way of the Lake, while the Christian army
fought two battles in the south of Buddu. In
the first they were victorious, but they were
beaten and driven back in the second. Stokes
and Mwanga did not join in the fighting, and
as the Sesse islanders declared for Mwanga he
was secure on the Lake and had command of
all the canoes. They succeeded in capturing
an Arab dhow, with arms and ammunition
destined for the Mohammedan faction, and
obtained as ransom for an Arab prisoner a
further large store of arms.
• * 4.
& 4. {
*
MWANGA AGAIN KING to:
Meanwhile the Christian army under Kagwa,
though again badly beaten in a third engage-
ment, and after various other reverses and
successes, fought a decisive action aided by
Kamswaga of Koki, and utterly routed the
Mohammedans, killing four hundred of them.
Kagwa marched on Mengo, and next day
stormed the capital, while Mwanga, landing at
Ntebbi, joined the victors, and was once more
declared king. Stokes left in June, after writing
to Mr. Jackson for help, and carried letters
from Mwanga to Mackay and the French
fathers appealing for forgiveness and help. In
response to these letters Gordon and Walker
set out for Uganda in August, 1889. An
embassy was also sent to Stanley, who at that
time was passing through Ankole on his return
from the “Relief of Emin Pasha,” but he
declined to interfere. The chiefships were now
equally divided between the two Christian
factions. Mwanga had been reproclaimed king
on October 11th, 1889, but almost immediately
afterwards the Christians were worsted in a
severe battle against Kaluna and his following,
and Kagwa was wounded. Mwanga, accom-
panied by two French and two English
missionaries, once more found himself a fugitive
in the islands, while the Christian army
temporarily dispersed.
CHAPTER V
THE ADVENT OF THE
IMPERIAL BRITISH
EAST AFRICA CoMPANY.
URING this year, 1889, the Imperial
British East Africa Company, to whom
a charter had been granted, had sent an
expedition to the Lake under Mr. Jackson, who
was accompanied by Mr. Gedge. The news
of the arrival of the expedition in Kavirondo
had reached Uganda in June, but Mr. Jackson
did not receive the letters despatched by Mr.
Stokes till November. His caravan, numbering
some five hundred rifles, was in a mutinous
state, and he had orders from the Company
not to enter Uganda. In reply to these letters,
Jackson wrote saying that he would come
provided all expenses were guaranteed, and that
DR. PETERS IN UGANDA Io9
Uganda accepted the British flag. Père
Lourdel, who was Mwanga's chief adviser at
this time, counselled acceptance of these terms,
and a letter was sent to Jackson accepting his
conditions and promising certain commercial
advantages. Jackson thereupon sent a flag,
which arrived on December 15th, and went
northwards with Gedge into the Turkana
country. Returning three months later, he
found that Dr. Carl Peters, a German in
command of a filibustering expedition which
had violated British territory, had passed through
his camp at Mumia's, and had opened and read
the letters addressed to Jackson. Acting on the
information thus obtained, Peters wrote offering
his help to Mwanga, which was accepted, and
he proceeded to Uganda with some fifty or
sixty Somalis, armed with repeating rifles.
Meanwhile the Christian chiefs had collected
a large army, with contingents from Singo,
Chagwe, and Buddu, and the opportune arrival
of the arms and ammunition promised as
ransom for the Arab prisoner enabled them to
take the field once more. Having made a
compact of perpetual peace between themselves,
they met and defeated the Mohammedans, who
were driven out of Uganda to the frontiers of
Unyoro, before the arrival of Peters. Kabarega,
who had sent a contingent to help the Moham-
medans, afforded an asylum to the defeated
faction. The beginning of 1890, therefore, saw
IO4 A SEA OF TROUBLES
Mwanga once more installed as king, and with
it came the news of the death of the devoted
missionary Mackay, who had spent so many
years in Uganda. Peters arrived on February
24th, and, with the assistance of Père Lourdel,
prepared a treaty for Mwanga's signature. The
“English” faction were excluded from all know-
ledge of this treaty, which was incompatible
with the promises made to Jackson, and they
absolutely declined to concur in it. -
Fresh troubles now seemed imminent.
Already the country was devastated by
plague and famine, and the two Christian
factions were on the verge of war between
themselves, while the Mohammedans hovered
on the frontier. The “English '' faction took
counsel of their missionaries, and Walker and
Gordon urged them to agree to Peters' treaty
to save a suicidal war. Armed with his treaty
Peters hurriedly left the country, where his
methods had already rendered his presence
obnoxious and the anticipated arrival of
Jackson made his position precarious,
Jackson, meanwhile, on his return to
Mumia's, and his discovery of the unfair
advantage taken by Peters, decided to march
at once to Uganda. The greater part of his
caravan mutinied, and he appears only to
have succeeded in compelling the remainder
of his undisciplined rabble to follow him by
seizing their arms. He reached Uganda in
JACKSON IN UGANDA Io 5
April, 1890, with one hundred and eighty
guns. The treaty he now presented was
refused by the “French " faction, and again
feeling ran high. The “English ’’ party, in
despair, discussed the idea of leaving the
country altogether—an extraordinary and
extreme step for Waganda, who are devoted
to their land. In these circumstances Jackson
withdrew his treaty, though he seems for
some time to have encouraged the idea of
the Protestant emigration. He consented
instead to take two envoys to England, who
should bring back word whether Uganda was
to be British or French.
Gedge remained in Uganda with some
twenty to thirty men, but was away most
of the time at the south of the Lake, and
only returned shortly before my own arrival.
During the early part of 1890 the Moham-
medans remained on the frontier of Unyoro.
Kaluma died, and they adopted Mbogo, a
brother of Mtesa's, as their king, and raided
Uganda from time to time,
In October, 1890, the writer, who was then
in the service of the Company, and had
undertaken to build a series of small forts
from the coast, had arrived at Kikuyu, and
built a fort there. On October 19th I received
instructions from the Directors to go to
Uganda, which by the Anglo-German Agree-
ment of July, 1890, had been definitely placed
Ioé CAPTAIN LUGARD ARRIVES
within the sphere of British influence. To
this part of the agreement France had taken
no exception. My expedition consisted of
some fifty Sudanese soldiers, and about two
hundred and fifty Swaheli porters, armed for
self-defence with cheap Snider carbines. I
had with me Messrs. De Winton and Grant,
and a very competent Somal, named Dualla.
We carried an old worn-out and nearly useless
Maxim, which Stanley had just brought back
from his “Relief Expedition.” Marching
with hitherto unprecedented rapidity across
Masailand, Mau, and Kavirondo, the expedi-
tion entered the capital of Uganda on
December 18th. No white man had hitherto
entered the country without the permission
of the king, and this had never been given
without long delays. I had, however, been
informed that Mr. Stokes was conveying to
Uganda a large quantity of arms for the
king, and it was feared that the lives of the
Europeans were in danger. I found the
passage barred at the Nile, and no canoes
available, but was able to seize a couple
which, owing to the failure of the attempts
of the Usoga guides to lead the expedition
astray and its consequent unexpected arrival, +
had not yet been removed. Small as these
were, the whole party was successfully
conveyed across before night-fall by dint of
hard work. I was the first to cross, and as I
THE FIRST BARAZA Io'7
landed two men with rifles rose from behind
the rocks and disappeared, having apparently
been afraid to fire. -
The day after our arrival at Mengo I was
received by the king and chiefs, and presented
letters from the Directors. I stated in the
Baraza that I should make no distinction as
to creed, and hoped to arrange the disputes
satisfactorily, and insisted on calling the
factions by the names of “Protestants,” and
“Roman Catholics” (instead of “English ’’
and “French ")—terms, as Mr. Ashe states,
hitherto unknown in Uganda—making it
clear that while religion was absolutely free
in Uganda, the whole country was now
British. Dr. Peters' treaty had been dis-
avowed by his Government, and the Anglo-
German Agreement had once for all settled
the question of European suzerainty. This
view, however, was not acceptable to the
“French " faction, while the Protestants were
disappointed at finding that under the new
régime they would not be helped to crush
their rivals. So unreasonable was the
attitude of all the factions, that in bitterness
—but not seriously—I threatened to leave
Uganda and form an alliance with Kabarega.
The following days and nights were full of
anxiety. The defenceless little camp at
Kampala was continually on the alert, for
Mwanga had declared himself of the
• *,
.*
&
s' gº
* *
Io8 NEGOCIATING THE TREATY
“French * faction, and these now threatened
momentarily to attack. Self-preservation
dictated a coalescence with the Protestants,
but duty and honour urged complete neutral-
ity between the rival factions.
The great object was to obtain a treaty
which would give us a right to intervene in
the internal affairs of the country. The
presentation of this treaty is thus described
by Ashe “The day before Christmas the
question of a treaty was introduced before the
king in open court, where a dangerous and
excited crowd of chiefs had collected. All
came armed with loaded rifles, the Roman
Catholics to support the king against the
English, and the Protestants to defend
Captain Lugard. One angry partisan
actually covered Captain Lugard with his
gun, but the muzzle of the loaded weapon
was instantly beaten down by one of the
Protestant chiefs from Buddu—the faithful
Zakaria. Twice De Winton—one of Lugard’s
companions—heard the click of a rifle being
cocked, while the chiefs, seeing that a fight
was imminent, quickly slipped their cartridges
into their rifles. Iugard, however, was too
absorbed to heed anything. The king was
terrified and greatly excited as the strange
Englishman, heedless of his evident disin-
clination, insisted that he should sign the
treaty. But at last, when the king seemed
wo
* .
** * , :: • * , : º
º *
º • , , ,
4 * *
º * , tº
AN ANXIOUS NIGHT Io9
about to give way, such a clamour arose
outside from the Roman Catholic party that
Captain Lugard felt it wiser not to face the
rising storm, or to persist in a course which
would presently transform Mengo into a
bloody battle-ground. He therefore returned
to Kampala, to spend an anxious night. He
could now realise something of the intense
excitement which prevailed as he listened to
the shouting, drum-beating, and angry voices
now and again crying out that the English
should be killed. Next day was Christmas.
The other Englishmen, as the custom of
Englishmen is, kept festival, but the anxious
leader excused himself, for the extreme gravity
of the situation oppressed his spirit. He
determined to seek a private interview with
the terrified king. But no sooner had he
neared the gates of Mengo, than the royal
drums boomed out, and armed men with
rifles ready came stealing up, and slipped in
to guard the king. Some treachery was
suspected on both sides, it appears. Lugard
then turned back amid the half-suppressed
jeers and chuckling of the insolent rabble.”
Next day the French fathers bade their
faction sign the treaty, which was done
without further trouble. On the following
day Bishop Tucker and a party of English
missionaries arrived; the Bishop leaving again
in a month. A temporary lull followed the
11o THE BURNING QUESTIONS
signing of the treaty, and I set myself to
endeavour by every possible means to gain
the confidence of both factions, and to a great
extent succeeded; but Protestants and Catholics
alike were under the complete control of their
missionaries, and every effort, whether with
the Europeans or the natives, to emphasize
the distinction between politics and religion
seemed to be abortive. Meanwhile the camp
on Kampala was transformed into a moderately
defensible position. In January, I891, Captain
Williams, R.A., with a small force of Sudanese
and a Maxim, neared Uganda. His approach,
added to the defences at Kampala, were the
signal for fresh suspicions and new trouble,
but he arrived at last without mishap. It is
hard to exaggerate the relief which his arrival
afforded. From morning till night the burning
questions between the two factions, on which
from day to day hung the issue of peace or
war, were discussed, and Several were satis-
factorily settled ; but, as Ashe remarks,
“nightly war drums were beaten, and daily
excited crowds of either faction would collect,
armed for battle. The strain for all concerned
was becoming intolerable.”
The matters in dispute were of a most
complicated nature, involving a conflict
between the established law and custom of
the country, the promised religious freedom
and equality, and the agreements made by
A TRYING SITUATION I I I
the factions between themselves. Each would
appeal to whichever made for his case, and
both parties were very uncompromising,
especially the “French " faction, which was
the more powerful. The discussions referred
to the division of estates and of the Sesse
islands between the factions, the question
whether a chief abjuring his religion should
retain the office he held as a nominee of his
faction, and many other similar matters. For
a full account the reader is referred to the
author's book “Our East African Empire,”
and to Mr. Ashe’s “Chronicles of Uganda.”
There were many other difficulties to be
faced by the administrator. The English
missionaries took umbrage at his assertion of
the separate nature of religion and politics, at
his refusal to concur in the establishment of
missions in Outlying provinces at such a
moment, and at other matters; while the
French Bishop Hirth, who had succeeded
Mgr. Lavinhac in May, 1890, roundly
demanded “justice" for his faction if war was
to be staved off Supplies ran short, and
difficulties and quarrels arose between the
Company's men and the Waganda, while
Stokes made trouble on his own account.
The position was not a bed of roses.
At the beginning of April, 1891, the
Mohammedans having made continual raids
into the country, the Christians, under the
112 THE QUESTION OF THE FLAG
leadership of Kagwa — now Katikiro —
marched against them with some four
thousand seven hundred guns and twelve
thousand Spearmen, accompanied by the
Administrator and Captain Williams with
their fighting force, consisting of about three
hundred soldiers and as many porters. Yet
even in such an enterprise new difficulties
arose in this ceaseless rivalry of factions
and religions. No Sooner had the burning
question of who should be the general of the
combined armies been settled than the
Katikiro demanded a Union Jack to carry as
the flag of the army. To grant his request
would probably have resulted in the whole
of the “French "faction leaving the expedition
and returningtothecapital,a stepthe"English.”
would not have dared to allow them to take.
Moreover, it had been tacitly agreed at the
time the treaty was made that the flag should
not be forced on the people. Assembling all
the chiefs, “French '' as well as “English,”
for I had many firm friends among the
former, I frankly laid the position before
them, proposing that the terms English and
French should be abolished, and all accept
the British flag. It was finally agreed that
the Katikiro and Pokino should have British
flags, while the French chiefs would not
attempt to force it upon their faction. “Both
sides,” writes Ashe, “had thus obtained a
THE QUESTION OF THE FLAG 113
diplomatic advantage. The Protestants now
carried the Company's flag, and were
Company's men, while the Roman Catholics
could pose as patriots who had refused a
foreign flag, and could urge, with some
apparent though not real reason, the
complaint that the Company's banner was
merely the symbol of the Protestant party,
which Captain Lugard had always taken
pains to deny.” Such was a typical Uganda
“Shauri’”
Every endeavour was now used to open
negociations with the Mohammedans, and
envoys were induced to come into the camp.
The demands made were that they should
give up Mbogo and lay down their arms, and
I wrote for them, as an alternative and at
their wish, a letter to the Germans asking for
a safe passage for them to the coast. At first
they agreed to give up their king, but
afterwards declined and elected to fight. On
May I Ith, the Mohammedan army, reinforced
by Kabarega, was completely routed, the
enemy's position, which was well selected
behind a formidable swamp, having been
turned by a ruse. I had been anxious to
march on Kabarega's capital, feeling that the
longer our army kept the field the more
likely the chiefs were to coalesce, and bury
their animosities, and the more likely would
it be that we should gain an influence and
9
114 DEFEAT OF MOHAMMEDANS
make firm friends among them. Moreover,
the chronic Mohammedan difficulty could not
be finally settled until their asylum was
attacked, and their ally—whose tyranny was
the curse of his country—defeated. The
Waganda, however, shewed no desire for the
enterprise, and the army returned to Mengo.
Williams accompanied them, and, with Mr.
Bagge as his companion, took charge at the
capital, while, with Grant and Macpherson,
the pick of the fighting men, and a small
contingent of Waganda, under the best
of the chiefs, Zakaria, I marched south to
Buddu.
The position in Uganda—with the four
contending factions, Protestants, Roman
Catholics, Pagans and Mohammedans, a
treacherous, cowardly and weak king, and
European missionaries hostile to each other,
and none of them very friendly to the efforts
of the Company's agent, while exerting great
influence with their factions—had driven me
to the conclusion that the situation was
impossible, unless we could find astrong central
force. The Company had no troops, and I
therefore formed the idea of marching to the
south of the Albert Lake, and enlisting there
the Sudanese who had been abandoned by
Stanley and Emin. A further object was the
desire to check the import of powder and
arms from German territory, by entering into
EXPEDITION TO ALBERT LAKE 115
treaties with the chief of Ankole, &c., and if
necessary by establishing forts.
Leaving Buddu in June, 1891, after crossing
Northern Ankole and passing the Albert
Edward Lake, the expedition entered Toru,
which lies at the foot of the mountain mass
of Ruwenzori. This Wahuma country had
been overrun by the Wasura of Kabarega, and
its people were outcasts and slaves. Accom-
panying the expedition was the young prince
Kasagama, the rightful heir, who had taken
refuge in Uganda. This young prince was
installed as king, and “the fugitive Wahuma
came out from their hiding among the
mountains, escaped from their slavery among
the Wanyoro, or bade farewell to Ntali, who
had sheltered them, and with great rejoicing
recognised the boy Kasagama as their king.”
After dispersing more than one army of
Kabarega's, and traversing for the first time
the South of Unyoro, the expedition crossed
the Semliki and reached Kavalli's on
September 7th. The position of the exped-
ition was precarious, for the Small force was
vastly outnumbered by the Sudanese (armed
with Remingtons), whom Stanley had
described as treacherous ruffians. After some
difficult negociations, however, Selim Bey
agreed to accompany the Administrator to
Uganda, and that his soldiers should enlist
in the Company's service if the Khedive's
consent were obtained. Meanwhile, they
I 16 ENLISTING THE SUDANESE
agreed to serve me. The whole body,
including women and children, and slaves,
numbered over eight thousand, and this large
mass, under our guidance, marched back
towards Unyoro. A series of forts were built
on the frontier between Toru and Unyoro,
and De Winton was temporarily left in charge
to control them, pending the arrival of
Williams, who spoke Arabic and whom I
intended to send on Iny return to Uganda,
which I reached at the end of December, with
two hundred or three hundred Sudanese
soldiers, and two or three times that number
of followers.
Meanwhile, Williams, amid endless diffi-
culties, and with a mere handful of men, had
somehow managed to keep the two factions
from a general civil war, though fighting had
occurred in Buddu and in the islands.
Mwanga had offered to go over to the English
side, but had, says Ashe, been bribed with
ivory to cancel his proposal. The French
priests had apparently employed their time
in building a loop-holed fort on the top of
Rubaga, where they resided, and had
imported a considerable number of rifles.”
At the end of December a large caravan
arrived from the coast, and simultaneously I
reached Mengo with the reinforcement of
Sudanese. At the same time a number of
* Ashe, p. 203.
DIFFICULTIES AT MENGO 117
new priests arrived, so that the Europeans in
Uganda were as follows: Company's agents,
six; English missionaries, seven; French, six.
Ashe appears to hold that a well-laid scheme
had been planned to bring on a war before the
arrival of the Administrator from the west and
of the caravan from the east, and that the
invasion by Koki, the movement in Chagwe,
and the attacks in the islands, were all part of
this concerted plan, which miscarried owing in
part to the vigour and bravery of the
Protestant chiefs, and in part to the delays
of the Roman Catholics. But it is quite
evident that the “French * faction, who
considered themselves quite strong enough
to sweep the English out of the country, had
fully determined on war, and Ashe states that
the king, and probably the French priests,
had in anticipation already removed their
goods to the islands for safety.
There was a pause till the caravan had left
to return to the coast, and then the lawlessness
broke out with redoubled fury. On January
22nd, I892, a gun was Snatched from a man
of the “English” faction, and on his pursuing
the thief into an enclosure he was shot dead.
Instantly the whole country was in a ferment.
Similar incidents had recently occurred,
though this seemed worse than any before,
and it was apparent that a climax had been
reached. I went at once to see the king, but
II 8 OUT BREAK OF HOSTILITIES
was treated with discourtesy, and feeling
overpowered by the sun, and doubting the
advisability of remaining till disrespect grew
into insult, left my Somali headman to report
the result of the enquiry promised by the king.
The verdict was an acquittal of the homicide.
A protest sent was received with jeers, and
the assertion that the “French '' would sack
Kampala. The French bishop was appealed
to in vain to hold his party in check, and on
January 24th, the king and the “French "
party beat their war-drums and prepared for
battle. Only at the last moment, when peace
was past praying for, were some spare arms
issued by the Company's representative to
the “English "faction to equalise the parties.
The English missionaries accepted the pro-
tection of the fort, but the French fathers,
confident in the victory of their faction,
preferred to remain in their own fort. While
already the war-drums had sounded and the
excited antagonists faced each other, a fresh
outrage was committed by the Kanta—a
“French *' chief.
The French faction now made an attack,
and instantly the fight became general. The
“English” party, aided by the company's troops,
were victorious. The king and the “French’’
faction fled to the islands, and when victory
declared itself it was too late in the day for
any pursuit in the dense jungle grass. The
DEFEAT OF “FRENCH* FACTION 119
Fathers were rescued from their precarious
position, and treated at Kampala with every
courtesy which genuine sympathy for their
unfortunate plight could dictate. I now
wrote inviting the king to return, promising
to forgive his past actions, and to reinstate all
the “French” chiefs, except two who had offered
public insults. No indemnity was asked, and
the matter would be forgotten. Mwanga was
anxious to return, and so were many of the
chiefs, but the French bishop, who was a
guest at Kampala, hastened to the king,
promising that he would bring Mwanga back.
There is no doubt whatever that his great
influence was used in the opposite direction,
and Mwanga, as he told the envoys sent to
him by the Administrator (impartial and
very respectable Mohammedan traders, agents
of Stokes) was kept a prisoner by the “French.”
faction.
For five days every effort was made to
secure peace, and to induce the king to return,
the only result being that an insolent message
was sent by the king, and a “French "chief
attacked some “English ’’ canoes. Captain
Williams thereupon attacked the island of
Bulinguge, which the enemy had imagined
impregnable. The Protestant Waganda, who
had shewn such pluck on land, were not of
much use by water, but Dualla, with a
party of the company's troops, covered by
I 2 o THE ATTACK ON Blu LINGUGE
Williams's Maxim, effected a landing, and
the “French " were driven out with great loss.
Unfortunately Mwanga escaped, accompanied
by Mgr. Hirth, but the rest of the fathers
once again sought the shelter of Kampala,
and every effort was made to recover the
property they had lost. They were on the
most friendly terms with the English officers,
who spared no effort to mitigate their
discomfort, and severely dealt with anyone
who shewed them any discourtesy, but later
it transpired that during this period of
friendly intercourse the Father Superior was
sending letters to Europe full of bitter
invective and false statements. Others, who
were not within hundreds of miles of the
events narrated, endorsed these accounts, and
the European press rang with the story of
the bloody butcheries of women and children,
the long-planned extermination of the Roman
Catholic religion, and other atrocities laid to
the charge of the administration.
An extraordinary movement now took
place in Uganda. The “French " party had
deliberately made all their plans, and had
agreed that in case of reverse they would
occupy Buddu, a province under an “English"
chief, and reckoned mostly Protestant. It
was in the extreme south of Uganda; whereas
Chagwe, under a “French "chief, and mostly
Roman Catholic, was in the extreme north.
“FRENCH” MIGRATION I 2 I
A vast migration now began of the “French "
faction towards Buddu, to which point also
the defeated king and army were directing
their course by water. As an “English ’’
province, it had been assumed that Buddu
would be fairly able to take care of itself.
The most capable of the chiefs, Zakaria, was
there, and also the Sudanese garrison, under
the very best of the Sudanese officers, Ferag
Effendi. In any case the Protestants could
retire southwards to the friendly country of
Ankole—with whose king I had made blood
brotherhood and a treaty,+Messrs. Walker
and Smith were at the Buddu capital, and
had just been joined by Mr. Ashe on his
return to the scene of his successful labours in
Uganda. The warning the Protestant chiefs
had been asked to send to them had
apparently not arrived, and as the plan of the
“French '' faction to concentrate in Buddu
became clear, anxiety began to be felt for their
safety, but until the startling news of the
“French '' party's march towards Mengo
reached Kampala it had never been supposed
that such an idea would occur to them.
The Protestants’retreat from Buddu, hampered
by great numbers of women and children, was
covered by Zakaria and his fighting men, who
drove off their assailants, and making a detour
to the west, the party arrived safely, passing
a similar exodus of Roman Catholics making
I 2.2 MWANGA ON GERMAN SOIL
for Buddu from Chagwe. With the “French "
faction ready to make an attack from Bulinguge,
or from the Buddu direction where they had
concentrated, and with daily reports that the
Mohammedans were marching on the capital
from Unyoro, it was impossible to detach a
party of men to help the fugitives from Buddu.
Ferag had stoutly refused to leave the fort
committed to his charge until starved out, when
he fought his way back with great gallantry. A
relief party had been sent to him by water—the
fort being on the Lake shore—but it arrived too
late. The Buddu party arrived on February 8th,
after the defeat of the “French '' at Bulinguge,
and Bagge, who had gone to Bukoba by water
previous to the trouble, after many escapes and
adventures also arrived safely. Mwanga and
Mgr. Hirth had, it appears, been closely
pursued by the Protestant canoes, and,
according to Ashe, only escaped capture by
the intervention of Sergt. Kühne, a German,
who chanced to arrive at Sesse with Bagge.
They then went on to the German station of
Bukoba, where Captain Langheld gave them
shelter. Ashe, writing by the light of later
disclosures, attributes interested and not very
straightforward motives to the Germans in their
action throughout this crisis ; but, however that
may be, there was nothing in the fragmentary
and confusing reports which came to hand at
the time to raise any doubt of the good faith
THE VACANT KINGSHIP I 23
of the German officers in the minds of the
British officers at Kampala. The selection of
Buddu, however (which was coterminous with
the German frontier) as the point of concen-
tration of the “French " faction, the immediate
flight of Mwanga and Mgr. Hirth to the
Germans, and remarks made by the priests in
conversation, all go to show that Mgr. Hirth
had hopes of help from his countrymen (he was
an Alsatian).
Letters were now sent to Mwanga advising
him to return, and promising him reinstatement,
but beyond this I refused to discuss any terms
until the king should have arrived. The Sesse
islanders, as has been seen, controlled the
canoes on the Lake, and being Pagans they
were on Mwanga's side. Williams therefore
took an expedition and over-ran the islands.
Thence he went to Bukoba, and obtained
Langheld's permission to take the two infant
children of Kaluna, who were at the French
mission at the south of the Lake. It was my
intention to place one of them on the throne,
in case Mwanga did not at once return. Their
mothers, however, refused to let them come to
Uganda, and Williams returned unsuccessful.
Mwanga sent to ask for two of his wives, and
the opportunity was seized of sending him
messages, which were more likely to reach him
than previous ones. In reply he said he was
eager to return, but was a prisoner. Early in
I 24 MWANGA'S RETURN
March the vacant chiefships were filled up, and
it became necessary seriously to think of placing
the Mohammedan Mbogo on the throne, since
the continued absence of a king kept the whole
country in a state of anarchy. Two envoys,
however—the two biggest chiefs of their faction
—arrived at this juncture to make terms for
Mwanga's return. I, however, declined to treat
until the king himself arrived, and Seboa then
returned to fetch Mwanga, while the Kimbugwe,
the head of the Catholic party, remained at his
own suggestion as a hostage of good faith.
Two Protestant chiefs accompanied Seboa, and
succeeded in effecting an escape with Mwanga,"
who had been a close prisoner; and the mission
of two French fathers, who had likewise come
to arrange terms, was therefore rendered
abortive.
Mwanga arrived on March 3oth, and was
received with great joy by the “English” faction.
I insisted on his coming first to Kampala, but
went out to meet him, and treated him with
every courtesy. The British flag now flew over
the king's house in Mengo, and British influence
had become, Ashe says, “an established fact ’’
at last. A new treaty was made in place of the
former provisional one, and without the reserva-
tions contained in the earlier one. After
Mwanga's return the Roman Catholic chiefs
were given a proportion of the chiefships, and
Buddu, the richest province, was assigned to
MOHAMMEDANS REPATRIATED 125
them to live in. An agreement was drawn up
with them on April 5th, which they accepted
with great pleasure, though the Fathers later
tried to persuade them of its injustice, and
disputed its terms. Contrary to all expectation,
the Mohammedan faction had refrained from
attacking during the civil war between the
Christians. They professed that they had
refrained because they did not wish to fight
against the Company. They now clamoured
for recognition, and it appeared to be not only
just to repatriate them, but politic, since the
Protestants could not have met them in battle
with their flank exposed to an attack from the
“French.” Ashe maintains that there was a
treacherous understanding between the Moham-
medan faction and the Sudanese, but had that
been so it was possible for the latter at any time
to have joined the Mohammedans and left the
Company's officers helpless. It was now
arranged that three minor provinces should be
given to the Mohammedans, with the chiefships
pertaining to them, and after a very difficult and
precarious interview I succeeded in bringing
back Mbogo to Kampala. The giving-up of
their king meant to the Mohammedan Waganda
their annihilation as a faction struggling for
supreme power in the country, and was a mark
of extraordinary confidence. Mbogo remained
a guest at Kampala, and during all the troublous
times that followed he never wavered in his
126 COMPANY DECIDES TO EVACUATE
loyalty. Both Christian factions, as well as
their missionaries, were very bitter at this
repatriation of the Mohammedans, but they
served as a useful equipoise to the other
factions.
Meanwhile the events which had been
occurring in Uganda had rendered it impossible
for Williams to relieve De Winton in Toru.
De Winton had done his best to carry out his
instructions regarding the Sudanese in the
Unyoro forts, but it was impossible for a man
who did not understand Arabic, and who was
not himself a soldier, to control these lawless
soldiery. The news reached Kampala that he
had fallen ill, and Macpherson was instantly
despatched to tend him, but he had already
died at his post. -
It will be remembered that at the end of
December a caravan had reached Uganda. It
brought letters from the Directors ordering the
evacuation of Uganda at once, together with a
later order cancelling this, and directing the
Administrator to remain till December 31st,
1892. At the end of the year—since the
Company could no longer afford to maintain
its hold on the country—he was directed to
retire to Dagoreti with his whole force. The
lives of many Europeans were at stake, nor did
it seem possible to myself and to Williams to
abandon the people of Toru—to whom the
Company had pledged its protection—to the
PETITION TO THE QUEEN 127
tender mercies of the Sudanese and Kabarega,
or to desert the Waganda who had fought on
our side; and, after consultation with Williams,
who even offered to use his private means
rather than desert the country, I determined to
return alone to England and fully explain the
position of affairs and to appeal to the English
people not to abandon the country and break
the pledges given in their name. The railway
survey party arrived on June I oth, and I
determined to take advantage of their escort to
the coast, so as not to deprive Williams of a
single rifle.
The outlook in Uganda was now fairly
reassuring. Peace reigned among all three
factions, and the mission work was increasing
wonderfully. I left Kampala on June 16th,
and a letter signed by Mwanga and the great
chiefs of all parties was sent after me
addressed to the Queen, imploring Her
Majesty not to withdraw from the country,
and asking for my return. Arriving in
England at the end of October, I found that
the British Government had finally decided
not to come to the assistance of the Company,
and that Uganda was to be left to its fate. A
short and sharp campaign was at once entered
on. The influence of the Church Missionary
Society and of other philanthropic societies
was invoked, and the pens of a thousand
writers in the press warned the Government
I 28 ENQUIRY ORDERED
of the day that the feeling in favour of the
retention of Uganda was too strong to be
disregarded. On December 10th, Lord
Rosebery, the Foreign Minister, who himself
had always been in favour of retention, was
able to announce that Sir Gerald Portal,
Consul-General at Zanzibar, was to be sent to
report on the best means of dealing with
the country, and the course which should be
adopted with regard to the Company’s
engagements and treaties with natives. The
Government gave a subsidy to the Company
to enable them to continue the administra-
tion for three more months—till March 31st,
1893, by which date Portal would have
arrived in the country. Meanwhile Captain
Macdonald, R.E., of the railway survey, being
supposed to be in the vicinity of Uganda,
received instructions to enquire into the late
disturbances there, and the claims for compen-
sation advanced by the French Government
on behalf of the priests. Besides Macdonald
there reached Uganda at the end of 1892 a
party of missionaries under Bishop Tucker,
Herr Wolff, correspondent of the Tageblatt—
a German who had been directed to leave
German East Africa—and Mr. Gedge, who
had formerly been in Uganda with Jackson
and now returned as correspondent of Zhe
Times. Macdonald sent home a voluminous
report, which was chiefly a criticism of my
AN INDEMNITY TO FRANCE 129
administration. It was examined by a com-
mittee of the Cabinet, who set it aside ; but
rather than send a fresh commission to
Uganda after so long a lapse of time the
British Government consented to pay an
indemnity to France, while not admitting
that any compensation was due, in order to
dispose of a heated controversy which was
endangering the relations of the two countries
at a time when far more important issues in
Egypt, Siam, and West Africa were pressing
for solution.
Having previously directed Macdonald by
letter to await his arrival, Sir G. Portal
reached Uganda on March 17th, I 893, accom-
panied by Messrs. Berkeley and R. Portal,
Colonel Rhodes, and Major Owen, with four
hundred porters and two hundred and forty
soldiers. Williams, who since my departure
in the previous June had remained as the
Company's administrator, left soon after for
the coast, taking with him the Egyptian
Sudanese, and leaving only Selim's men in
Uganda. By a splendid exhibition of tact
and judgment, he had managed to prevent
any civil war in the country. It was he who
had raised and trained the troops, and by
his fearless bearing and freedom from bias
had exerted a powerful influence on the
natives. Judging by the accounts of Mr.
Ashe, however, he had not been more
IQ
130 CAPT. WILLIAMS'S MEASURES
successful than his predecessor in avoiding
friction with both missions. Macdonald on
his return found great changes, the capital
rebuilt, roads bridged, and every sign of
prosperity, and Williams, he says, had
“worked wonders.” He had, however, been
very ill.
During this period Ashe relates that on two
occasions the Protestant party were on the
point of dividing into two hostile sections,
now that the fear of the Roman Catholics
and Mohammedans was removed. The con-
viction had indeed been forced on me that,
among so quarrelsome and impulsive a people,
peace and good order could only be prevented
by disarmament, and a strong central
executive supported by a considerable force.
Williams's first act had been to demand
from Kabarega—who had before my departure
sent envoys to sue for peace—a large quantity
of ivory as an indemnity for his long hostility
to Europeans, and his invasions of Uganda; but
the demand was ignored. In this and other
measures Williams was actuated by the desire
to provide a revenue whereby the hold on the
country might be maintained, and with the
same object in view he re-assessed the tribute
of Usoga on a fairer basis, and arranged that
half should be devoted to the public revenue.
In October he sent Grant to control this
province, — which he had himself partly
UVUMA CAMPAIGN I3 I
conquered and organised in May, 1891.
Grant was most successful in his work, and
acquired a very great influence in Usoga.
In February, 1893, after all attempts at
negociation had failed, he led a very power-
ful fleet and army against the Uvuma
islanders, who were constantly raiding in
Chagwe, and whose hostility prevented the
establishment of a canoe service between
Uganda and Usoga or Kavirondo. The
attack was excellently organized and com-
pletely successful, and Macdonald states that
the terms given to the islanders were humane
and generous, and secured them as loyal allies.
The arrangement I had made regarding the
territorial area given to the Roman Catholics
had been purely temporary, and was neces-
sarily made in haste and based on vague
information—in the absence of maps—a
regards cultivable area; nor was there any
possible way of arriving at any estimate o
the numbers of the people to be accommodated.
Williams considered Buddu somewhat too
small for them, and Portal on his arrival
largely increased their territory, and, carrying
out a plan I had suggested, gave them estates
at intervals between Buddu and the capital at
which they might rest on their way to and fro.
A Roman Catholic Katikiro (in lieu of
Kimbugwe) was instituted and other offices
of State were added,
CHAPTER VI
THE DEcLARATION of
THE PROTECTORATE
N April 1st, 1893, Portal hoisted the
British flag and made a provisional
treaty with Mwanga, and Owen was sent
to enlist four hundred Sudanese (making a
total of six hundred and twenty-five) from
the forts in South Unyoro. Portal then
endeavoured to effect an understanding
between the Christian parties, by bringing
the two bishops together, while he attended
“unofficially.” The result as described by
him was not satisfactory. In the matter of
mission extension he secured a “purely
temporary” pledge from each side, pending
reference to Europe, that they would not
extend in particular directions. In his
SIR GERALD PORTAL I 33
despatches Portal states that if the establish-
ment of rival missions in Toru led to riots
and bloodshed, he “should not feel bound to
intervene in any way,” and they could fight
it out among themselves. If Her Majesty's
Commissioner, with an authority fully recog-
nised by both missions, a large staff, and a
powerful force, acting by order of Government
in a British Protectorate, was unable to find
any solution to the difficulties of mission
rivalry other than that he would abandon a
part of the country under British rule to the
anarchy of civil war without intervention,
some idea may be formed of the difficulties
which beset the Company's representatives,
with inadequate forces, no staff, and an
authority disputed by the Europeans; yet
they never took so weak a line of action as
this. Sir Gerald's brother Raymond, who
had been sent to South Unyoro with Owen,
was brought back in a dying state. His
death, together with the incessant strain of
work and anxiety which always devolved on
the man responsible for Uganda, coupled
with fever, so broke down the Government
Commissioner that he hurriedly left the
country. Sir G. Portal's short stay of two
and a-half months was not sufficient to enable
him to acquire an adequate knowledge of the
complicated questions with which he had to
deal, and fortunately his intention of aban-
134 HIS NEW ARRANGEMENTS
doning Toru was for the time over-ruled by
the advice of Williams and his staff.
Without attempting a criticism of the
Commissioner's action, it may be desirable
to point out that the crucial point of the
arrangement made by the Company's repre-
Sentative was that the Roman Catholics were
free to teach their creed throughout all
Uganda, and that the profession of that creed
was to be no bar to election to any office of
State. Portal, by doubling their territorial
area, and making additional chiefships
inalienable from the party, once again
constituted them a political faction—to
which, after their late action, they had
forfeited all claim. The year which had
passed, during which they had loyally
fulfilled their undertakings, would however
have justified the Administrator in securing
for chiefs of that creed additional offices and
privileges. The new arrangement necessarily
gave much umbrage to both the other factions,
In the report which Portal ultimately sub-
mitted to Government, on his return in
December, 1893, he advocated the revocation
of the Company's charter, the retention of
Uganda (without Toru, Unyoro, etc.), and
the construction of a railway only as far as
Kikuyu. The necessary expense would, he
argued, be met by a Government grant of
430,000 per annum for a railway, and 4 20,000
MACDONALD LEFT IN CHARGE. 135
for Uganda administration, with an extra
4 6,600 for Kikuyu, and 4 2,800 for the up-keep
of steamers—a capital sum of £55,000 being
expended on the latter. Though he had
doubled the territory of the Roman Catholics,
in order to secure the young princes in their
custody, he admitted that four-fifths of the
cultivable land there was lying waste. Finally,
he rightly urged the retention of Uganda as
a bulwark against the domination of Islam in
Africa.
Portal, on his departure, left Macdonald as
Acting Administrator, and of the latter's clear
and excellent account of subsequent events the
following pages are more or less a résumé.
He found himself called upon immediately
to deal with a difficult situation. On the
departure of the Egyptian Sudanese with
Williams, Selim Bey, to whom his Sudanese
rendered an unquestioning obedience, was in
a very strong position. By Williams and
myself he had been treated rather as a
coadjutor than as a servant, but now, as
Commandant of the new battalion, he was or
course amenable to orders, and the new-
comers perhaps hardly made sufficient efforts
to save'his amour propre. He was, moreover,
deeply humiliated by the refusal of the
Khedive's Government to admit his loyalty
to Emin and to reinstate him. Finally, apart
from his position as commandant, he con-
136 TROUBLE WITH MOHAMMEDANS
sidered himself responsible for the welfare of
the mass of unenlisted Sudanese, and for the
Waganda Mohammedans. Of the former he
was the patriarch and chief; for the latter he
had pledged himself on the Koran at the time
of their repatriation. Macdonald on the other
hand lacked the advantage, which I had
enjoyed in Williams, of an Arabic-speaking
officer, respected by the Sudanese and
exercising a great influence with them. It
may be that he also did not recognize any
necessity for explaining to Selim the
unreasonable nature of the demands of the
Mohammedan faction, and the disloyal
attitude they had adopted. Macdonald states
that the latter, led by a scoundrel named
Juma, had put aside the respectable chief
whom I had trusted, and committed them-
selves to a course of intrigue and treachery.
This assumption of the right to depose and
appoint chiefs without reference to Kampala
could not, of course, be allowed. Macdonald
further asserts that they had endeavoured to
induce the Roman Catholics to raise with
them the standard of revolt, and had estab-
lished slave markets, and that at the durbar
the day before Portal left they had openly
threatened rebellion. To this Portal had
replied by giving Macdonald orders to deport
them if they proved troublesome. Finally,
he explains that the reason why they had not
THEIR INSOLENT DEMANDS 137
attacked at the time of the civil war was
because they were divided in their counsels
between doing so and first securing the
co-operation of the Sudanese in Toru, and
so missed their opportunity. The Sudanese,
contrary to their expectation, had refused,
and as they had already incurred the hostility
of Kabarega by treating with his enemies, and
by raiding his country, they were forced to
come to terms with the Company's represent-
ative. Macdonald adds that the territory
they had secured was greatly in excess of
their proportionate right, since although only
five per cent, of the population they had three
provinces assigned to them; and that the
insolent demands now made for an increase, on
the ground of Portal's addition to the defeated
“Roman Catholic rebels,” were the more
unreasonable since they had not attempted to
cultivate in the provinces they owned. They
were, in truth, rather a fighting gang of bandits
than a section of the population, and they lacked
the peasantry to cultivate, and therefore began
a system of raiding, theft, and dacoity.
In January, while Williams was still in
command, war would have broken out, says
Macdonald, had not Selim hinted that the
Sudanese would be unwilling to fight their
co-religionists. The Mohammedans now refused
to do the king's work, assembled a large number
of rifles at the capital, and intrigued with the
138 SELIM AND THE MOHAMMEDANS
Sudanese; only waiting to act till Portal and
his Zanzibaris should be far from Uganda, and
Selim all powerful. Whether or not all these
assumptions were capable of proof, there was
no question as to Selim's attitude. He declined
to allow the unenlisted to be sent to Port Alice,
and wrote both to the king and to Portal
regarding the claim of the Waganda Moham-
medans to the province of Busiro. Macdonald,
in preparation for a crisis, wrote asking Portal
to return, and received from him in reply a
contingent of twenty men under Villiers. He
then paid up all the troops and ordered Selim to
Port Alice. The troops under Selim's command
looted and stole on the way, and he arrived
flying his own flag, and counter-ordered the
orders of Mr. Reddie, who was in charge there.
The native Moslems meanwhile reinforced their
contingent at the capital, but at a durbar held
on June 12th, at which they were forced to an
immediate decision, they submitted to do the
king's work and reported to Selim. They had
now one thousand two hundred guns at Mengo,
and began to concentrate the rest of their force
thirty-five miles from the capital, while Selim
wrote saying that Mwanga must not attack the
Mohammedans. On March 17th Macdonald
recalled Reddie and his Zanzibaris from Port
Alice, and Captain Arthur from Usoga, and
collected all Englishmen within the fort, where
he also placed Mbogo and the infant prince,
THE SUDANESE DISARMED 139
The French priests, as well as most of the
Roman Catholic fighting men, had bolted
towards Buddu. Macdonald arrested Juma and
two other Mohammedan chiefs as hostages,
pluckily exposing himself in so doing, and
sent an ultimatum to the Mohammedans at
the capital either to give up their arms or to retire.
Reddie arrived early on the 18th, and re-
ported that Selim had said he would join the
Mohammedans in case of fighting. There
were now about 120 Zanzibaris at Kampala.
The enlisted Sudanese at the fort strongly
protested their loyalty, and next day even
volunteered to fight against Selim if he proved
recalcitrant ; but some of them refused to take
the oath of allegiance, and all were disarmed
at the mouth of the Maxim as a precaution.
The ultimatum to the Mohammedans having
been disregarded, they were attacked by the
Protestants, who had secretly concentrated two
thousand rifles, and were defeated and driven
out with the death of their Mujasi, the most
prominent leader next to the prisoner Juma.
Selim had sent a party of soldiers towards
Mengo, but the Mohammedans had already been
defeated, and Selim's men retired. Next day,
Macdonald marched with a strong force to
Port Alice. The Sudanese laid down their
arms, and did not resist the arrest of Selim,
who was tried and sentenced to deportation.
He admitted the justice of his sentence, and
I4O RODDY OWEN
the whole of the Sudanese took the oath of
allegiance, while Gedge left for the coast,
taking poor old Selim, who was a dying
man, and the scoundrel Juma (who escaped),
together with the old ex-King Mbogo, who
throughout these troubles had shown the
greatest loyalty and had used every endeavour
to curb his people. The defeated Mohammed-
an faction fled to their provinces, where eight
chiefs elected to lay down their arms and
remain peacefully in Britambala, two of the
three Mohammedan provinces being given to
the Christians—one to each sect—though Mgr.
Hirth at once claimed both.
Meanwhile Owen—who with Grant was en-
gaged in enlisting Sudanese in South Unyoro,
and in concentrating all the mass of un-enlisted
in the two Eastern forts, with a view to
abandoning the Western ones—was in a very
dangerous position. Macdonald had sent him
warning, but could do no more. I had urged
the necessity of employing Arabic-speaking
officers to control this band of dissolute
soldiery, but none had been sent by the Com-
pany. De Winton's death, and the fighting in
Uganda, had left them to do as they pleased,
and instead of forming self-supporting little
colonies, which should protect Toru from
Kabarega's cruelties, they committed horrible
atrocities, and laid waste a great area of
country. Owen was a man not only of great
TROUBLES WITH SUDANESE 141
courage and resource, but also of initiative.
He found Usongora and Kitagwenda—which in
the Company's time had been friendly—devas-
tated and hostile. A strong band of Manyema
slave-raiders on the borders of the Congo State
were threatening the garrison of Fort George,
and had sent letters to the Sudanese reporting
the successes of the Congo mutineers, and
urging them to revolt. Owen sent envoys to
them, who were seized, and Portal, on hearing
of it, forbade any steps for their relief, and
ordered the abandonment of Toru. The
Sudanese garrisons and colonies were in a
state of famine and suppressed mutiny, while
the withdrawal of the men who had been
enlisted had weakened them ; they had also
suffered a reverse at the hands of the Wanyoro,
and the brave and devoted Shukri, whom
Williams had brought from Egypt, had been
killed. Owen sent to Toru for food, and to
Kampala for assistance. The defeated Waganda
Mohammedans now brought false tales of the
events at the capital—of massacres of women,
and of a crusade against Islam. A plot was
formed under one Bilal to murder Owen and
Grant, and for the Sudanese and Waganda to
set up a Mohammedan kingdom in Toru, or
to retire to Kavalli's. Owen was powerless, but
adopted the desperate course of declaring his
complete belief in Bilal, and appointing him
Commandant of the enlisted force. The
142 FIGHTING THE MOHAMMEDANS
Scheme succeeded, and Bilal threw in his lot
with the British, seeing a better chance for
himself than by heading a migration into the
wilderness.
The Waganda army now arrived in pursuit of
the Mohammedans. Owen interposed and
treated with the latter, but they suddenly showed
that they had only been throwing dust in his
eyes, by breaking off the negociations and
marching westwards. Owen and the Christians
pursued and defeated them, six hundred being
reported killed. The rest submitted, and
seventy chiefs accompanied Owen back to
Kampala. Before arriving, however, they
bolted, and, joining the remnant of their
faction, seized their old provinces, and once
more defied the Administration. Owen and
Macdonald with separate columns marched
against them, and gained a bloodless victory,
the majority laying down their arms and
accepting dwelling-places scattered throughout
the Christian provinces. Six hundred recal-
citrants fled to Koki, where Villiers and
Reddie were sent to coerce them and settle
outstanding questions with Koki. This
was successfully accomplished without further
fighting. Macdonald now rightly decided to
withdraw the Sudanese colonies from South
Unyoro, together with two thousand Wanyoro
who had thrown in their lot with them against
Kabarega. He proposed to locate them at
MORE SUDANESE ENLISTED. 143
Port Alice, at Luba's, and at two new forts in
the west of Uganda. The difficult migration
was accomplished by Owen and the capable
and indefatigable Grant, without a hitch.
Macdonald was also prepared to abandon Toru,
and locate Kasagama and his people in a
depopulated part of Uganda, but that chief,
having received two hundred guns to defend
himself against Kabarega, preferred to remain.
From these colonies the enlisted force was
raised to a total of six hundred, and Macdonald
formed the excellent idea of a reserve force of
three hundred men on half-pay. This enabled
them to support their families, and being now
under the more immediate eye of the Adminis-
tration they began to cultivate and to cease
from robbery. Their Lendu slaves, with the
consent of their masters, were formed into a
porter corps. Such is the story, as told by
Macdonald, of the second Uganda crisis.
CHAPTER VII
THE CONQUEST OF UNYoko
ACDONALD now turned his thoughts
to the question of dealing with
Kabarega, who was a constant thorn in the
side of Uganda, his country being the asylum
for all its enemies. But before he could
put his plans into execution Colonel Colvile
arrived with several officers, to take command,
in November, 1893.
Kabarega anticipated hostilities by sending
an army to invade Toru and another against
Usoga. Owen was sent with a force to make
a diversion in favour of Toru, and, marching
with his usual rapidity, he met and inflicted
a severe defeat on one of Kabarega's armies.
Colvile meanwhile with eight Europeans, two
Maxims, 450 Sudanese, 3,400 Waganda rifles,
FIGHTING IN UNYORO 145
and some 13,000 spearmen, invaded Unyoro,
and occupied the capital without resistance.
Kabarega retreated into the dense Budongo
forest, in which he was besieged by the
invaders. While Colvile proceeded to build
four forts from Kibero on the Albert Lake to
the frontier of Uganda, Owen was sent to the
North, where he twice defeated the Unyoro
army, and the Uganda general vanquished
the main body. The king, however, escaped.
Mr. Purkiss, who had been sent in the steel
boat to the north of the lake to co-operate
with Owen, suffered great hardships from
starvation and hostile attacks, but eventually,
by good fortune and his own pluck, returned
safely, without apparently any effort being
made to succour him. On his return from
Magungu Owen was sent in the boat to
Wadelai. He reached that place by an exhi-
bition of daring and perseverance which was
somewhat wasted on so futile a project, and,
having hoisted a flag, returned to Kibero. In
February, 1894, Colvile returned to Uganda,
leaving Thruston in command in Unyoro,
and Macdonald left for England.
During this year there was much fighting
by detached parties in North Unyoro. Captain
Thruston, in May, fought a very brilliant
action, storming the almost inaccessible
mountain fortress of Masaga Inkuru, where
Kabarega's army was wont to camp in
I I
146 PROTECTORATE DECLARED
Security and harass caravans. Captain Gibb
and Mr. Grant in July made a difficult march
to Mruli by land and water, in which Grant,
who was in command of a fleet of canoes, lost
touch of the land column in the thick sudd
and papyrus, and only extricated himself by
great pluck and resource. About the same
time Captain Thruston visited Wadelai, and
in August he inflicted a severe defeat on
Kabarega's army. In October he occupied
Mahagi, on the West of the Lake, and in
November, by a successful night surprise, he
nearly succeeded in capturing Kabarega. His
throne and other insignia, which Unyoro
superstition regarded as constituting the office
of king, and the loss of which meant the fall
of the dynasty, were captured. Cunningham
and others meanwhile fought various minor
actions in the South, and harried the fugitive
outlaws who now formed the party of the
Mujasi Gabriel. •
On August 27th, by order of Her Majesty's
Government, Uganda proper was formally
declared a British Protectorate, and Portal’s
treaty was ratified. At the end of 1894, Colvile
was invalided, and was temporarily succeeded
by Mr. Jackson, pending the arrival of Mr.
Berkeley, the first regularly-appointed Com-
missioner of Uganda, who arrived in June,
1895. A month or two previously Mr.
George Wilson, who was now to play a leading
MR. BERKELEY, COMMISSIONER 147
part in Uganda affairs, had arrived in the
country. During April and May, Cunning-
ham led an enormous army against Kabarega,
consisting of six companies of Sudanese, with
two Hotchkiss and three Maxim guns, and
twenty thousand Waganda. Vandaleur and
Ashburnham scoured the country, while
Grant, in command of the column by water,
stormed Lukungo with great dash in the
forty-five canoes which had been transported
overland.
The arrival of the Commissioner seemed
to usher in a period of peace and national
prosperity for Uganda. The year was also
marked by the final retirement of the
Imperial British East Africa Company, the
revocation of their charter, and the
assumption by the Government of direct
control over the whole of East Africa.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RAILWAY-BUILDING
ERA
RAILWAY from the coast to Uganda
had been proposed so long ago as
December, 1890, by Lord Salisbury's Govern-
ment, and it had been suggested that a yearly
Subsidy should be given to the Company for
this purpose. The ostensible object was to
crush the slave trade, upon which the
Treasury estimated that about 4 IIo,000 per
annum was expended in cruisers, slave
bounties, &c. In 1891 a survey party had
been appointed, towards the cost of which
the Government gave 4 20,000 and the
Company £5,000. Work was begun in
December of that year and the Survey
completed in the following October. In 1893
THE UGANDA RAILWAY 149
Sir Gerald Portal reported in favour of con-
struction as far as Kikuyu, but the first
committee to report on the whole project did
not assemble till April, 1895. It recommended
that the Government should itself provide the
capital and undertake the construction as far
as the Lake.
Ultimately it was decided that the metre
gauge should be adopted, with 5olb. rails, and
a vote of £ 3,000,ooo was proposed to cover
the cost. Parliament agreed to the proposal
by a large majority, and the work was begun
in December, 1896. It was at the same time
decided to send a steamboat and a launch for
work on the Lake. In 1898, 13,000 Indian
coolies were at work on the line, which by
March, 1899, had been opened as far as the
2O7th mile and laid for 72 miles further, in
spite of the difficulties arising from the plague
in India, the mutiny in Uganda, and the
engineers' strike in England. In November
of the same year, the line was opened for
traffic to mile 362, and the survey of the
whole line (582 miles) was completed in
April, 1900. In May, Parliament voted a
further 4, 1,930,000 to complete the building
of the line. The Protectorate steamer,
“William Mackinnon,” was launched on
Lake Victoria on the 4th of June, 1899.
An important departure was made in 1894
by the appointment of an English Bishop and
150 MGR. HIRTH AND THE PRINCES
staff for the Roman Catholic mission work in
Uganda, while Mgr. Hirth's diocese was
limited to the German sphere, and it was
now decided that there should no longer be
any territorial limits to the propaganda of
either sect or the establishment of new
mission stations. Mgr. Hirth had undertaken
that the two young princes in his charge
should be given up in return for Portal's
concessions—an extraordinary arrangement
between a missionary and Her Majesty's
Commissioner—yet, though the concessions
had been made early in 1893, it was not till
the end of 1894 that the princes were at last
brought to Uganda, and then only after
peremptory orders from Her Majesty's
Secretary of State and a threat of force from
the Acting Commissioner (Colonel Colvile),
who finally consented to sign a set of
conditions before Mgr. Hirth would bring
the Princes to Uganda.
It was found necessary to give up Portal's
idea of transferring the Administrative centre
to Port Alice on the Lake, and Kampala was
resumed as the seat of Government.
During 1896, the material progress of the
country was very marked. The imports and
exports are given by Mr. Berkeley as
follows:—
I894. 1895, 1896 (six months).
Imports ... Rs. 78,759 Rs. 222,006 Rs. 240,620
Exports ... Rs. 87,697 Rs. 224,728 Rs. 150,895
ECONOMIC PROGRESS I5 I
Two European firms had established them-
selves at the capital, and so numerous had
the native traders become that a separate
quarter, laid out on sanitary principles, was
instituted for them at the capital; while
improved market-places took the place of the
market-trees of old days. In promoting this
era of economic progress, Mr. Berkeley was
greatly assisted by Mr. G. Wilson, to whose
energy and enterprise he largely ascribes
the results achieved. On an average,
3oo labourers per diem were employed by
the Government, and an equal number by
traders, at rates amounting to about £3 12s.
per annum, while another hundred were
in Government service as mail men and
messengers. About sixty miles of unmetalled
roads, radiating from the capital to the chief
towns of provinces, were made, bridged and
kept in repair, while thatched houses of burnt
or sun-dried brick—some even being of two
storeys—were erected by the more important
chiefs, in imitation of the dwellings which
now began to take the place of the wattle-
and-daub, or grass, structures that had hitherto
sufficed for the European officials.
The Waganda artisans picked up with
wonderful quickness the improved methods of
the smiths and carpenters introduced from
India, and the use of European tools, while
efforts were even made to use such rough
152 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
machinery as oil-presses and saw-mills. The
cultivation of rice, wheat and cotton was
already energetically undertaken. The ex-
pression of oil from the seeds of the sunflower,
sesame, ground-nuts and castor-oil, became a
growing industry, while one firm alone had
one thousand coffee plants in their nurseries.
Land was set aside to be planted with forest
trees, for future use as timber; and eucalypti,
mangoes, apricots, mulberry, and other
imported trees were found to thrive. An
attempt was even made to manufacture cigars
from native-grown tobacco.
CHAPTER IX
THE KING's FLIGHT
AND THE
SUDANESE MUTINY
HE era of peace, which, with unimportant
frontier expeditions, had continued
through 1895 and 1896, was not destined to
last for long, and in the middle of 1897 storm
clouds began to gather. Mr. Berkeley had
left for England on leave, and had been
succeeded by the Deputy - Commissioner,
Col. Ternan. Major Macdonald had been
appointed to the command of an expedition
to Survey and explore the northern portion of
British East Africa, and orders had been sent
to Ternan to furnish him with an escort of
3oo Sudanese, besides a considerable number
of Zanzibaris. In June, Wilson—who was
in temporary charge in Uganda—discovered a
plot to raise a revolt, and arrested three
I54 FLIGHT OF MWANGA
leading chiefs in connection with it. In July,
Mwanga suddenly bolted. His complicity
with the plot had in no way transpired, but
his flight was doubtless due to a guilty fear
that the trial of the accused (who were
sentenced to deportation and long terms of
imprisonment) would inculpate him, and to a
belief that his secession would alienate a large
number of chiefs from the Government. In
this he was disappointed, and he fled almost
alone to the south of Buddu, where he
raised the standard of rebellion and gained a
large following. Ternan, who had been
conducting an expedition on the east of the
Lake against the primitive Savages of Nandi
and Kamasia, hastened with a force of
Sudanese and a large Waganda army to give
battle to the insurgents. Mwanga was
defeated in two engagements, in which his
followers fought with much bravery, and
Ternan was slightly wounded. Returning to
the capital, Ternan left Grant to deal with the
defeated rebel army, which he did in his usual
thorough and effective manner. The rebels
were driven out of Buddu into Ankole and
German territory, where Mwanga himself was
made a prisoner by the Germans, to whom he
had fled, Chua, the infant son of Mwanga, was
proclaimed King, with a regency of the three
principal chiefs.
Ternan meanwhile informed the Foreign
SUDANESE UNDER ORDERS 155
Office that the recent events would not form
any obstacle to the despatch of the 3oo
Sudanese to Major Macdonald at Baringo,
and he indicated no difficulty, and no reason
for doubting the expediency of the project.
Nor does any warning note appear to have
come from any side, since the acting Com-
missioner and Commandant of the troops
concurred. There were at this time about
I,200 enlisted Sudanese in the Protectorate.
Some had had an extremely hard time during
the campaigns in Unyoro, spread over such
a long period, and had long been separated
from their wives and families. Ternan had
taken three companies, the 4th, 7th, and 9th,
from the troops employed in Unyoro to
prosecute the campaign in Nandi. These
same companies had accompanied him to
Buddu, and had fought bravely and suffered
some loss against the rebels. They had
apparently considered themselves entitled to,
if not actually promised, a rest and a reunion
with their families, after the Unyorocampaign;
but had been called upon continuously to
engage in two separate expeditions subse-
quently, and now they learnt that they were
Selected to accompany Macdonald to an un-
known country for an indefinite time. They
understood that they would not be allowed
to take their wives with them, while native
reports described the land as foodless and
156 THE SOLDIERS’ GRIEVANCES
waterless, and full of hostile savages. Smoulder-
ing discontent, unknown to Ternan, had long
been growing into something worse. The
men complained that they were treated with
harshness, like dogs, though it was by their
aid that the British had won and held
Uganda. They bitterly resented the low rates
on which they had been enlisted. Their
original engagement had been made at a time
when, surrounded by difficulties, the attempt
was being made to hold the country for a
Company whose finances were broken, and
whose continued occupation had only been
possible by subscriptions from the charitable
at home; but it had been arranged to supple-
ment the pay by grants of land for cultivation.
Successive Administrators, acting from the
best possible motives, had secured the liberation
of their slaves, and the reduction of their
harems, till the soldiers, constantly called
upon to march and fight in every direction
month after month, had been transformed
from the military colonists I had sought
to establish into a very hard-worked and
much-drilled mercenary force. The food was
insufficient, the clothing promised had not
been issued, and even the miserable pittance
pledged to the troops by the British Govern-
ment was six months in arrears. The arrival
of such vital necessities was delayed by the
impolitic attempt to import steamers and
CAUSES OF DISCONTENT 157
other less essential things, which absorbed
the available transport. The wonder is that
the Sudanese stood it so long, and that in
spite of all, and of the appeal of the mal-
contents, so large a proportion remained loyal
and firm.
The pay grievance was accentuated by the
fact that the Sudanese brought from Egypt
were paid at five times the rate of the Uganda
Rifles, and that even some of their own body,
enlisted in the neighbouring East African
Protectorate, were also paid at these higher
rates, as also were the Swaheli porters, while
their own rate barely exceeded the wage of
the cheapest kind of local coolie labour.
After ordering the dispatch of those three
companies, Ternan left for England in August
in an indifferent state of health, and the
charge of Uganda devolved on Wilson,
pending the arrival of Mr. Jackson, who,
being shortly afterwards wounded, left Wilson
in charge throughout this very critical
period, while Thruston became commandant
of the troops. The three companies joined
Macdonald, and at Once put forward their
grievances, which, they state, were unheeded.
It appears extremely probable that the steps
taken to effect a solution were purposely
misrepresented to the men by their native
officers. They deserted, and went in a body
to the “Ravine Station,” saying they wished
I58 THE SUDANESE MUTINY
to state their grievances to Jackson, the
Acting Commissioner, whereupon, by order
of Captain Kirkpatrick, they were told to
ground their arms, and, on their refusal, a
Maxim was turned on them. Fortunately it
jammed, but the troops ordered to fire on
their comrades obeyed the order, though they
fired over their heads.
After this incident the men considered that
they were no longer soldiers of the Queen,
and insubordination became open mutiny.
Disregarding Jackson's attempts to effect an
understanding, they marched towards Uganda,
looting and pillaging on their way, their
numbers increasing as they went. Jackson
and Macdonald followed with a force of
Zanzibaris. Meanwhile Thruston, a man justly
loved by his soldiers, in whom he had an
implicit belief, hurried to the garrison at
Luba's on the Nile (for which the mutineers
were making), relying on his personal
influence to regain the men to their allegiance.
He and Mr. Norman Wilson, commanding
at Luba's, were made prisoners by the
garrison, who later seized the steamer (with
a Maxim), which was in charge of Mr. Scott.
On October 19th they attacked Macdonald's
force, and, after a very hard battle, in which
Lieut. Fielding was killed and Mr. Jackson and
Dr. Macpherson were wounded, the mutineers
were defeated with an estimated loss of
A CRITICAL SITUATION I59
Ioo. The same night the leaders, fearful
lest their men should desert them and submit,
murdered the three Europeans. They now
sent envoys to invite their comrades through-
out Uganda to revolt, and offered the
kingdom to Mbogo. But Wilson had already
disarmed the Sudanese at Kampala, who
cheerfully agreed to the necessity and
remained loyal, though many of their wives
were at Luba's. Mbogo, too, brought his letter
to Wilson, and wrote in reply condemning the
action of the mutineers.
. Meanwhile, a considerable Waganda army
had proceeded to the assistance of Macdonald.
From October 19th to January 9th, the
siege of the mutineers in Luba's continued,
with constant skirmishes, in which Mr.
Pilkington and Lieut. Macdonald lost their
lives, and a very large number of the Waganda
were killed, more especially in an attack by
Woodward on November 24th, 1897. Wilson
appealed for a strong force from India to help
to quell the mutiny, but in the meantime the
situation was most critical.
Early in January, Mwanga effected his
escape from the Germans, by changing
clothes with his attendant, who was in
consequence shot by the Sentry. Declaring
himself a Mohammedan, he was joined by
the remnants of that party and other
outlaws and malcontents from the German
I6o MWANGA'S ESCAPE
sphere. His force numbered about two
thousand four hundred guns, and rumours
, reached Kampala that the Buddu garrisons
of Sudanese, numbering about two hundred,
were wavering. Macdonald, leaving Wood-
ward to prosecute the siege at Luba's,
hastened to Buddu with a force of Swahelis
and a Waganda army, and defeated the rebels.
The Buddu garrisons were disarmed and sent
to join the others at Kampala, where there
were now some five hundred unarmed
Sudanese. The company in Toru remained
loyal, as did the garrisons of Unyoro, which
numbered about five hundred. At Luba's,
the mutinous Sudanese were estimated at
about six hundred, with two hundred Waganda
Mohammedans. They were well armed,
having also the Maxim they had captured on
the steamer, and a Government dhow which
they had also succeeded in seizing. With
this, on January 9th, they effected their escape
from Luba's in a leisurely manner, since
Macdonald had taken away the steamer to
Buddu, and Woodward had not sufficient
force to prevent them by land, and also to
guard his own camp and stores.
Capt. Harrison had arrived from the neigh-
bouring Protectorate with one hundred rifles
on December 5th, and Capt. Austin, R.E.,
reinforced at about the same time with the
second column of the Rudolf Expedition.
THE MILITARY SITUATION I 61
The Waganda had suffered heavily, and had
almost entirely exhausted their ammunition,
but fresh supplies were procured by the
kindness of the German Commandant at
Bukoba, who, when the Arab traders refused
to sell, seized the powder and caps and dispatched
them to Uganda. Towards the end of January,
the situation was as follows: The mutineers,
prevented from crossing the Nile at Jinja,
marched northwards along the east bank and
crossed higher up, on their way towards
Mruli. Should they reach that point, it
appeared certain that the Sudanese in Unyoro,
and the hitherto loyal Mohammedan party in
Uganda, both of whom had already shown
signs of wavering, would revolt, and the last
hope of the Europeans would be lost.
In the south, Mwanga's following still constit-
uted a formidable menace, while Kabarega in
North Unyoro had again become active. While
small columns continued to hold these two
local armies in check and prevent their coali-
tion, Macdonald marched rapidly north to
intercept the mutineers, having been further
reinforced on January 15th by one hundred
and fifty Indian troops. Lieutenant Scott was
sent ahead with a force to disarm the different
garrisons of Unyoro, which had been previously
isolated into detachments, none of which would
exceed his force numerically. This most diffi-
cult and delicate task he accomplished with
I 2
I62 THE FIGHT AT KABAGAMBI
complete success. On February 18th, Mac-
donald came up with the mutineers in the
Swamps near Lake Kioja, and after a couple of
successful skirmishes he returned to Kampala
on the 24th, leaving Captain Harrison in
command of the force. That officer, crossing
a great Swamp, which the mutineers had
deemed impassable, attacked them in a position
they had previously fortified at Kabagambi.
This was the decisive action, though by no
means the last, of the campaign. Refraining,
at the final assault, from pouring a deadly fire
at close range with the Maxim into the
mass of women who were mixed up with the
defenders in the stockade, Harrison captured
the stronghold at the point of the bayonet.
The mutineers were driven into the reeds of
the swamps with heavy loss, and a great
number of women were captured. The gallant
Malony was killed in this assault, and Lieut.
Osborne wounded. Meanwhile, a rumour of
Kabarega's death having reached Wilson, his
son Karukala was proclaimed king. Grant
returned to his own province, Usoga, to quell
the elements of disorder which were becoming
manifest there.
In April, 1898, Commissioner Berkeley
returned, and about the same time large
reinforcements of Indian troops under Lieut.-
Col. Browne reached Uganda. The mutineers
were by no means as yet disposed of, nor
END OF THE MUTINY 163
were the hostile combinations under Mwanga
and Kabarega as yet crushed, but the crisis
which had threatened the existence of the
Protectorate was past, and there were now
adequate troops and officers to deal with the
rebel bands, Macdonald left to prosecute his
interrupted expedition. Col. Martyn, D.S.O.,
began the re-organization of the Sudanese,
and in May inflicted another heavy defeat on
the mutineers near Mruli. The fighting
throughout this crisis had been very severe,
and the losses of the Protectorate forces are
given as four officers killed and three wounded,
with one hundred and twenty-five regulars
killed and wounded, besides Waganda, whose
losses were not very heavy. An application
for a special medal and clasps was submitted
by Macdonald, and a large number of rewards
were conferred on the officers engaged.
Much controversy has raged round the
events thus briefly described, more especially
regarding the possibility of the prevention of
Captain Thruston's murder by timely con-
cessions and the overtures made by the
mutineers for surrender, as well as concerning
the responsibility for the causes which led to
the mutiny. It is obvious that these are
questions which cannot be usefully discussed
here. All that it is possible to do is to relate
briefly the outline of the story of the mutiny.
This outline has been taken chiefly from the
164 THE FIGHTING IN UNYORO
only published record of events, namely, the
Blue Books presented to Parliament, which
of course present the side of the controversy
most favourable to those who had played a
part in the events narrated.
During this time Mwanga and the ex-Mujasi
Gabriel had been kept in check and defeated
in various engagements by Price and Sitwell,
and South Unyoro was finally cleared of
Mohammedans by Fowler. Mwanga, how-
ever, had succeeded in breaking away from
the forces in South Unyoro, and joining the
rebels in the north, where now there were
concentrated, in addition to his following, the
forces of Kabarega under Ireta, and the
remnant of the mutineers under Bilal Amin,
with a party of Waganda Mohammedans.
First Austin and Barrett, and then Malcolm
and Wake, defeated these forces in more than
one brilliant engagement, the last named
especially acting with conspicuous gallantry.
Price in June cleared North Unyoro, and
again, in conjunction with Martyr, made a
brilliant attack on their stronghold in the
mountains away north of the Nile in the
Wakedi country. Scaling a steep mountain
in the dead of night, he surprised a picquet,
jumping into the midst of them as they sat
round their fire, and overpowering them with
the assistance of one or two intrepid followers.
The ubiquitous foe was hunted backwards
MWANGA AND KABAREGA 1.65
and forwards by Price, Malcolm, and Wake,
but in October they recrossed the river, and
managed to surprise Lieutenant Hannyngton
in thick jungle, and to cut up his party,
wounding that officer himself severely. In
reprisal for this, Fowler, by rapid marches,
on October 24th surprised the whole party,
consisting of some two hundred to three
hundred Sudanese and five hundred Waganda
Mohammedans. They were beginning to
construct a powerful fort, to set up their
headquarters once more in North Unyoro
(having suffered much from the hostility of
the Wakedi across the river), but were once
more driven out with great loss to join
Mwanga and Kabarega across the Nile.
These outlaws thus remained a thorn in the
side of the Administration until late in the
year 1899, when it fell to the good fortune of
Lieut.-Colonel Ewart to capture both Mwanga
and Kabarega, who were at once deported to
the coast.
Thus ended the careers of two men who
had for years been the cause of a vast amount
of bloodshed, while Mwanga at least was
responsible for the cold-blooded murder of a
white man. Kabarega seems to have had
some good points, and Emin spoke highly of
him, but Mwanga was in every way despicable
and base. His leading characteristic was a
craven fear; he was ruthless in his cruelty,
I66 MARTYR'S NILE EXPEDITION
treacherous, and debauched with the vilest
obscenities. He can hardly be said to have
had a single redeeming feature.
On September 8th, Martyr started for
Wadelai and Dufile, in the hope of reaching
Fashoda, but was stopped by the sudd
after hoisting the British flag along the
Upper Nile and making treaties with the
local chiefs.
The railway is now nearing the Lake, and
with its completion and the era of peace and
progress which now dawns on Uganda it is
to be hoped that the country, for which
during 1898 the sum of £329,000 was granted
in aid by Parliament, will prove its value and
gradually become self-supporting. In the
autumn of 1899 Mr. Berkeley returned to
England, and his place was taken by Sir H.
H. Johnston, who left England in September
as Special Commissioner to take charge of
the Protectorate, it is understood for eighteen
months. Mr. Wilson also returned for a
short and well-earned rest. Mr. Grant
remained at his post, which he had never
left since he entered the country in 1890.
Thus ends the story of Uganda in the nine-
teenth century. The rivalry of contending
religions has been the bane of the country,
though the results achieved by both Christian
missions have in themselves been splendid.
The Katikiro now transacts his business with
CONCLUSION . 167
paper and pens and copying clerks around
him, while every chief considers it a disgrace
to be unable to read and write ; and far more
important than this are the ideas of truth,
mercy and justice which the native Christians
have learnt. Another evil has been the lack
of continuity in the administration of the
country. No individual has remained con-
tinuously in control, since the time of the
Company's rule, for more than a few months
at a time. This, which in a settled country
with a well-understood system of administra-
tion would not be advantageous, has in a
land like Uganda been positively fatal. It is
to be hoped that the experience gained at the
cost of So much blood and treasure, in the
troublous times through which the country
has passed, will guide the conduct and the
policy of the future, and that Uganda, which
from its geographical position, the intelligence
of its people, and its progress in civilization
and Christianity, must form the key to Central
Africa, will soon take its place as one of the
most progressive and valuable of the outlying
dependencies of the British Empire.
APPENDIX:
MISSION STATISTICs
HE European staff of the Protestant
Mission (Church Missionary Society) in
Uganda consists, according to the returns for
1899, of 20 clergymen, 13 laymen, 3 medical
missionaries (including one lady), 8 wives of
missionaries, and 14 other lady missionaries.
The native staff, entirely supported by the
native church, consists of 2 I clergymen,
1,197 laymen, and 275 women. The year's
statistics of this Mission also include the
following:—baptized persons, 22,166; catechu-
mens, 2,622 ; communicants, 5,317 ; baptisms
in 1899, 3,524 adults and 1,272 children;
scholars under instruction, II,359; hospital in-
patients, 451 ; out-patients’ visits, 26,823 ; Sales,
5,339 Bibles and New Testaments, 8,445
Gospels and other portions, 5,247 prayer-books
and hymn-books; paid by natives for books,
267,443. h
In connection with the Roman Catholic
Mission (Vicariate-Apostolic of the Upper Nile)
the following statistics are published, the year
referred to being the twelve months ending
with September, 1899 — Catholics, 3,529;
catechumens, 9,947 ; mission stations, 4 ;
churches or chapels, 4 ; priests, I I ; Schools, 3;
medical dispensaries, 4 ; baptisms, 748 adults
and 875 children; confessions, 19,963; com-
munions, 19,68o ; marriages, 74 ; funerals, 64;
children in schools, 177 ; confirmations, 665.
| N DE X
sº-
A
AMANS, FRERE, 88, 99.
Aborigines, 6.
Agriculture, 48, 152.
Ahmet ibn Ibrahim, 76.
Albert Lake, 9, 12, 60, 67,
8o, 83.
Albert Edward Lake, 8, Io, I2,
67, II5.
Anfina, 8o.
Animals, domestic, 44; wild,
66
Ankole, I, 37, 74, 82, ; Chris-
tian refugees in, 99, IOI,
II.5, I2I, I54.
Arabs, The, 43, 44, 59, 64, 69;
their coming, 76; opposition
to Europeans, 78, 91, 92, 95.
Area and boundaries, I, 55.
Army organization, 51, I43.
Austin, Captain, I60.
Art, 62.
Arthur, Captain, 138.
Ashburnham, Captain, I47.
Ashe, Revd. R. P., 18, 20, 2I,
24, 28, 29, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40,
55, 94, IO7, IoS, IIo, III,
II2, II6, II7, I22, I25, 129,
I30; arrival, 90; departure,
95; return, I2I.
B
BAGGE, Mr., II.4, 122.
Barbot, Père, 88.
de Bellefronds, M., arrival of,
8o, 82.
Baker, Sir Samuel, 43, 79 ;
invasion of Unyoro, 80, 83.
Berkeley, Mr., I29, I5o ; Com-
missioner, 146, I53, 162 ;
departure, 166.
Banana, The, 49.
Beadwork, 61.
Beluch traders, 76, 77.
Bilal, I4I.
Blood brotherhood, 24, 31, 42,
8o, I2I.
Boats, 60.
British flag, arrival of, Io9 ;
treaty proposed by Jackson,
IoS ; Anglo-German agree-
ment, IoS ; treaty presented
by Lugard, Io& ; treaty
signed, Io9 ; the flag ques-
tion, II2; the flag over the
king's house, I24 ; new
treaty, I24; Uganda to be
abandoned, I27; respite,
I28; Portal's treaty, 132,
146; Portal reports for re-
tention, I34; imperial grants,
I35; protectorate declared,
I46.
Browne, Lieut.-Col., 162.
Buddu, 7, 44, 56, 72, 74,
77, 95, IoS, II4, II5, I2O,
I21, I:23; assigned to Roman
Catholics, I24, 131, 154, 155,
I6o.
Bukoba, I22, 123.
I3
17o
Bulinguge, IIQ, I22.
Burton, Captain, 78.
Busiro, I38,
C
CASATI, Major, 51, 72 ; out-
rage on, 85.
Character of the People, I5.
Children, 30, 32.
Chiefs, Council of, 24; position
of Wakungu and Watongali,
26, 27, 55.
Christianity, effect of, 32,
36; Stanley's appeal for a
mission, 81 ; persecutions,
93 ; missions sacked and
Europeans expelled, 98 ;
Christians flee to Ankole,
98; freedom of extension,
I5O.
Chua proclaimed king, I54.
Circumcision, 89, 99.
Civilization, Native, 13.
Clans, Kiyika, 29.
Cleanliness, 40.
Climate, 8, II. *
Clothing, 30, 31, 37, 61 ; Arab
dress adopted, 89.
Coffee, 39, 43, I52.
Colvile, Colonel, arrives, I44;
invalided, I46.
Congo Free State, I, I4I.
Court etiquette, 22.
Cruelty, 20, 91.
Cunningham, Major, I46, 147.
Currency, 64.
D
DAGORETI, I26.
Tancing, 45.
Denoit, Père, 99.
DeWinton, Mr., Ioë, IoS, II6;
death, 126.
Diseases and doctoring, 68.
Drinks, 42.
Drum, The, 53, 63.
Dualla, IoS, II9.
Dufile, 166.
INDEX
Dwarfs, I5.
Dwellings, 46, I51.
Dyes, 58.
*
E
EARTHENWARE, 60.
Egyptian Garrisons, 83.
Elgeya, I4.
Elgon, 2, 7, Io, I4.
Emin Pasha, 7, Io, II, 19, 23,
25, 30, 33, 36, 43, 49, 61,
66, 67, 73, 76, 77, 91, 92,
II4, 135, 165; arrival with
Gordon, 83; second visit,
85, 87; third, 86.
European, The first, I4, 78.
R
FAMILIES, Size of, 30.
Fashoda, 166.
Fauvera, 83, 85.
Felkin, Dr., 9, Io, II, 23, 25,
28, 33, 58, 68, 69 ; arrival,
87, 93: ..
Ferag Effendi, I21, 122.
Fielding, Lt., killed, 158.
Fire-making, 41.
Flaherty, Rev. P., 90.
Fodi, 83.
Food, 39, 40.
“French” and “English"
factions, 98, Ioo; Chiefships
divided between, IoI, Ioz,
I24; civil war, II? ; migra-
tions, I2O ; lands assigned
to Roman Catholics, I24,
I31 ; Portal's policy, 134.
Furs, 56.
G
GABRIEL, the mujasi, 146,
I64. , ,
Games, 18, 32, 46.
Gedge, Mr. Ernest, Ioz; in
Uganda, Io;, 128.
Geology, 9, II.
INDEX
German East Africa, 1, 81 ;
Usagara occupied, 83 ;
Anglo-German Agreement,
Ios; the trade in arms, II4;
Mwanga's arrivals, 122, 154;
ammunition supplied to
Uganda loyalists, 16I.
Girault, Père, 88.
Gibb, Captain, I46.
Gondokoro, 79.
Gordon, General, annexations
by, 82, 92.
Gordon, Rev. E. C., 95, 99,
IOI, IO4.
Grant, Colonel, I4, 78.
Grant, Mr., Ioë, II4; in
Usoga, I30, 14o, I43, I46,
I47, I54, 162, 166.
H
HANNINGTON, Bishop, 19;
murdered, 94.
Hannyngton, Lieutenant, 165.
Harrison, Captain, 160, 162.
Hirth, Bishop, III; flight
with Mwanga, I2O, 122 ;
and the Germans, n23, 140 ;
diocese united to German
Sphere, I50.
Human Sacrifice, 21, 34, 35,
79.
Hunting and fishing, 45.
I
IMPERIAL BRITISH EAST
AFRICA Co., Ioz ; evacua-
tion contemplated, 126;
subsidy for, I28; charter
revoked, 134, I47.
Indian troops, 161, 162.
Immorality, 19, 26, 29, 31.
Insects, 67.
Ivory, 56, 64.
I 71
J
JACKSON, Mr. F. J., Ior ;
expedition to the lake, Io2 ;
arrival, Ioq, I46, 157;
wounded, I58.
Johnston, Sir H. H., 55;
arrival, I66.
Juma, I36, 139, I4o.
Junker, Dr., 88, 95.
K
KABAGAMBI, IO2.
Kabaka, 24, 25, 51.
Kabarega, IQ, 25,
and Baker, 8o ; wars with
his brothers, 8o; supreme
king of Unyoro, 80, 83, 84,
86; shelters Mohammedans,
IO3, IO7, II.3, II.5, I27;
indemnity demanded from,
I30, 137, 14o, I42 ; his
aggression and defeats, I44;
throne captured, I46, I47,
161 ; deported, 165.
Kafu River, Io, 79.
Kagwa, 97, IoI, II2.
Kaluna declared king, 99,
IOI ; death, IoS.
Kamasia, 7, I4, 154.
Kampala by Mengo, seat of
government, IO7, Io9, IIo,
II8, I2I, I23, 124, I27, I36,
I42, I5o, I59, 16o, I62.
Kamrasi, 79, 80, 83.
Kamswaga, IOI.
Karagwe, 2, 4, 77, 78.
Kasagama, II5, I43.
Kasindula, 74.
Kasuga, 83.
Katikiro, 28, 97, 98, II2, I31.
Katwe, Lake, I2, 61.
Kavallis, II 5.
Kavirondo, I, 2, I4, 37, 55,
94, IO2, Ioë, I31.
Keane, Prof. A. H., II.
Kibero, I2, 60, 145.
54, 73 ;
I 72
Kioja, Lake, 162.
Kidi, 79.
Kiroto, 83, 85.
Kitagwenda, I41.
Kitara, 4.
Kikuyu, IoS, 134.
Kintu, 16, 70.
King, power of the, 20, 22, 24,
31, 45; the succession, 23.
Kirkpatrick, Captain, 158.
Kiwewa's short reign, 97, 99.
Koki, IoI, II?, I42.
L
LABOUR, 29, 30, 31, 46, 48, 56.
Landed proprietors, Wataka,
28
Language, 5O.
Lavinhac, Bishop, 88, 99, III.
Learning, aptitude for, 18, 59,
I5I.
Langheld, Captain, 122, 123.
Legends, 16, 67, 70.
Litchfield, Rev. G., 87, 88.
Live stock, 44. &
Long, Colonel, 83.
Lourdel, Père, 88, 99, Ioq,
Luba's, 94, 143.
Lubuga, 25, 32.
Lukungo Stormed, I47.
Luchiko, 24.
Lugard, Captain, at Kikuyu,
IOS ; in Uganda, Ioô; neu-
trality between factions, Io9;
the treaty, Io9 ; difficult
situation, III: ; march to the
South, II4; appeal against
evacuation, I27.
Lundu, 83.
M
MACDONALD, Lieut., killed,
I59.
Macdonald, Major, II, 55, 60,
73, 84 ; mission of enquiry,
128, 131; his administration,
135, I45, I53, I58, 16o, 163.
Mackay, Rev., 20, 59 ; arrival,
87, 88; his industrial teach-
ing, 90 ; in danger, 94, Ioo,
Ior ; death, IO4.
INDEX
Macpherson, Dr., II4, 126,
I58.
Magungu, 82, 83, 145.
Malony, Captain, killed, 162.
Manufactures, 56, 151.
Manyema slave raiders, 141.
Map, 5.
Markets, 65, 151.
Marriage and divorce, 29, 30,
31.
Martyr, Colonel, 163; Nile
expedition, 166.
Masaga Inkuru Stormed, 145.
Masailand, Ioč.
Masindi, 83.
Mason and Gessi, I2.
Mau escarpment, I, 8, 66, Ioé.
Mbogo, 53 ; adopted as king
by Mohammedans, IoS, II3,
I24; brought to Kampala,
I25, 138, I4o, I59.
Mbugu, bark-cloth, 14, 37, 39,
57.
Meals, 41.
Measures, 51.
Mengo, IOI, IO7, Io9, II4,
II6, I21, 124, I38.
Metal working, 58, 9o,
Minerals, II, 59.
Mir Aga, 85.
Mission, Protestant: Stanley's
appeal, 81 ; established by
Church Missionary Society,
86; influence extending, 92;
Mwanga's suspicions, 93;
expulsion, 98; statistics, 168.
Mission, Roman Catholic :
arrival of 87; withdrawal,
89 ; return, 93; expulsion,
98; the Peters treaty, Io; ;
fort on Rubaga, 116; treat-
ment by British officers, 119,
I2O ; atrocities alleged, I2O.
compensation claims, 128,
129, 139 ; English clergy
appointed, 149 ; Statistics,
I68,
INDEX
Mohammedans, 36; Mtesa's
attitude, 81; triumph of 99;
defeated by Christians, IoI ;
again victorious, IoI ; driven
out, Io9 ; raids, IoS, III ,
routed by Lugard , and
Williams, 112 ; non-inter-
vention in civil war, I25;
repatriation, I25; unreason-
able demands, 136; brigand-
age, 137; chiefs arrested,
139; followers retire, I40 ;
defeat by Owen, 142; rebel-
lion under Mwanga, I59.
Moore, Mr. J. E. S., 13.
Mountains, 7, 8, 9, Io, I2.
Mourning, 39.
Mpanga River, 9, Io,
Mpara, 83.
Mruli, 64, 83, I46, 16I.
Mtesa, king, 19, 20, 21, 29, 53,
54, 62, 64, 65; accession, 75;
welcomes visitors, 77, 78;
misrule, 79 ; adopts Chris-
tianity, 81 ; fights the
Wavuma, 82; Ennin, 83, 84;
sends envoys to England,
87, 93; other creeds, 88;
death, 90.
Mumia's, Io9.
Musa Mzuri, 77.
Music, I8, 45, 62.
Mwanga, king, 19; accession,
92; persecution of Christians,
93; war against Unyoro,
95 ; devastating his own
country, 95; plotting with
Pagans, 96; flight, 97 ; re-
storation, Ioo; second flight,
Ior ; accepts help from Dr.
Peters, Io9; again restored,
ro4; on “French” side, Ioy;
and Lugard, IoS, II6; third
flight, 118; detained by
“French" faction, 119 ; re-
instatement, I23, I24, I27;
fourth flight, I54; defeated,
I54; in German hands, 154;
escape, 159 ; capture and
deportation, 165,
I 73
N
NAMASOLE, 25, 32.
Names, native, 32.
Nandi, 2, 14, 154, 155.
Navy, 53.
Nile, Io, I2, 78, 79, 8o, 83,
Ioé, 161, 166.
Ntali, 99, IOO, II5.
Ntebbi, IoI.
Numerals, 18.
O
O'NEILL, 86.
Osborne, Lieut., I62.
Origin of the people, 2, 70.
Owen, Major, I29, 132, 140,
I45.
P
PARKER, Bishop, 96.
Pearson, Rev. C. W., 87, 88.
Peasants, Wakopi, 27.
Peters, Dr. Carl, Io9 ; his
treaty, IO4, IO7.
Physical characteristics of the
people, 3, 4, 15, 38.
Pilkington, Mr., killed, I 59.
Population, 54.
Portal, Sir G., 55; mission of
inquiry, I28, 129, 131 ; and
rival mission, 132 ; depar-
ture, 133; his report, 134,
8
I38. g
Portal, Mr. R., 129; death,
I33.
Port Alice, I38, 143, 150.
Princes and Princesses, 25, 26.
Princes, Kaluna's children,
I23, 135; given up by Bishop
Hirth, 150.
Progress, matcrial and moral,
I So, 166
Punishments, 21, 25, 31, 40,
5O.
Purkiss, Mr., 145.
I74
R
RAILWAY, 134; the survey,
I27, I48; the building, I49,
I66.
Reddie, Mr., 138, I42.
Religion, the native, 29, 33, 47.
Religions, conflicting, 86.
Religion and politics, the
separation of, III.
Revenue, 55, 130.
Rhodes, Colonel, I29.
Rionga, 80.
Rivers, 9, Io.
Roads, 48, I51.
Rosebery, Earl of, 128.
Rudolf expedition, 160.
Ruwanika, 78.
Ruwenzori Mountain, 8, ro,
36, 66, II5; ascents of, I2.
S
SALT, 6o.
Salutations, 39.
Sanitation, 50.
Scenery, 7, 8.
Scott, Lieut., I6I.
Scott-Elliott, Mr., I3.
Selim Bey, II5, 135, 137, I38;
deported, 139.
Semliki River, Io, II5.
Sesse Islands, II, IOO, III ;
Williams's expedition, I23,
Setuba, 74. e
Singo, 95.
Shifalu, 82.
Smith, Dr., 86, I2I.
Smith, Lieut. Shergold, 86.
Slaves and slave trade, 28, 43,
64, I43, I48, I56.
Smoking, 43.
Soap and candles, 61.
Social customs, 39.
Speke, Captain, 8, 14, 20, 37,
43, 67, 77, 78, 84, 90, 91 ;
arrival in Uganda, 78.
Stairs, Lieut., I2.
INDEX
Stanley, Sir H. M., 7, 8, 12,
I4, 20, 37, 53, 54, 71, 74, 84,
9I ; arrival in Uganda, 80,'
82; Emin relief expedition,
IOI, IO6, II4, II5.
Strangers, treatment of, 19.
Stuhlmann, Dr., 13. *
Stokes, Mr. Charles, Ioo, IoI,
IO2, Ioë, III.
Sudan, relations with, 82. -
Sudanese soldiers, 89,106, IIo;
Selim's men enlist, II5, Iió,
121, 127; departure of all
but Selim's men, 129; enlist-
ments, 132 ; intrigues with
Mohammedans, 137 ; dis-
armament, 139 , oath of
allegiance, I4o ; atrocities,
140; mutiny threatened, I41;
Bilal won over, I4I ; Mac-
donald's projected expedi-
tion, I53, I55; grievances,
I55; desertion, I57; mutiny,
I58; defeated, 158; murder
of Europeans, I59 ; siege of
*Luba's, I59;Buddu garrisons
disarmed, I60, 161 ; the final
fights, I62, I63, I64, 165. .
Suna, king, 20, 29, 53, 54, 72 ;
story of his reign, 74.
Swaheli porters, IOG, 157.
T
TANGANYIKA, 2, 78.
Ternan, Colonel, I53, I54;
departure, I57.
Thomson, Mr. Joseph, Io; his
expedition from Mombasa,
93.
Thruston, Captain, I45, I46,
I57; murdered, I59. -
Toru, I, 56, II5, I26, 134, I37,
I4o, I4I, I43, I6o.
Trade, 56, 61, 64, 76, 77 ;
statistics of progress, I5O.
Travelling, 45.
INDEX
Trees, 66, 152,
Tucker, Bishop, 94, Io9, 128.
Turkana country, Io9.
U
UNYoRo and the Wanyoro, I,
2, 4, Io, II, 20, 23, 25, 28,
30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39,
4O, 41, 42, 44, 48, 5O, 54, 55,
56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66,
67, 70, 72, 73, 74; Speke's
arrival,79; Baker's invasion,
8o ; Gordon's annexations,
82, 83 ; connection with
Uganda, 84, II5, 122, 134,
I40 ; garrisons withdrawn,
I42; conquest by Colvile,
I45; Thruston's victories,
I45, I46; Cunningham's
march, I47, I55, 160; Kar-
ukala proclaimed king, 162.
Usagara, 93.
Usinga, 4.
Usoga, 1, 2, Io, 37, 56, 66, 72,
74, 81, 94, I3o, I38, I62.
Usongala, 74.
USongora, I41.
Uvuma Islands,60; conquered,
I31,
V
VANDALEUR, Lieut. Seymour,
vºtable products, 49, 57, 61,
viºli, Lake (Ukerewe), 9,
19, 12 : Steamer on, I49.
Villiers, Lieut., 142.
I75
W
WADEI,AI, I45, I46, 166.
Wagoga, The, 6
Wahuma, The, 2.; origin, 2.;
character and position, 3,
27, 44, 64, II5.
Wakedi, The, 14, 56, 72.
Walker, Rev. R. H., 95, 99,
IOI, IO4, I2I.
War and weapons, 16, 37, 51 ;
firearms, 89.
War between Christians and
Mohammedans, Ioo, Io9,
II2, I42.
War between Protestants and
Roman Catholics, II8, 119,
I22,
Wars, Suna's, 74.
Wasoga, The, I4, 37, 58, 63.
Watongali, 24.
Wavuma, The, 81, 82.
Wichwezi, The, 4, 32, 35.
Williams, Captain, IIo, II2,
II4, II6, II9, I23, I26, 127,
I30, I31, I36; departure,
I29.
Wilson, Rev. C. T., 7, II, 19,
2O, 24, 29, 33, 4 I, 43, 45,
46, 7Q, 71, 73, 76, 85, 90;
arrival, 86, 89.
Wilson, Mr. Norman, mur-
dered, 158.
Wilson, Mr. Geo., 5o; arrival,
I46, I51 ; in charge I57,
I66.
Wolff, Herr, I28.
Women, position of, 29, 46,
8
4ö.
Woodward, Captain, 159, 160.
Woodwaite, 59.
Wrestling, 46.
Z
ZAKARIA, IoS, II4, 121.
R. O. HEARSON, LTD.,
PRINTERs,
15 AND 17, crerquRCH LANE,
LONDON, E.C.
NIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ſiliili
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