CHAPTER VII'ON SAFARI'

Baganda Warriors at Kampala.

If you wish to make a Baganda perfectly happy, all you need to do is to say, "Way wally," which means a sort of supremely earnest "Well done." The moment this talismanic expression has left your lips, the native to whom it is addressed will probably fall on his knees, and, clasping his two hands together, will sway them from side to side, as if he were playing a concertina, while all the time his face beams with a most benignant and compulsive smile, and he purrs, "A—o, a—o, a—o," as much as to say, "My cup of joy is overflowing." It is not in accordance with our ideas that man should kneel to man, and one feels uncomfortable to see it done. Yet it should not be thought that the action, as performed by the Baganda, involves or implies any servility. It is their good manners—and meant to be no more. Nor, once you are used to it, do they seem to lose at all in dignity. Only they win your heart.

The road from Entebbe to Kampala passesthrough delicious country. Along its whole length a double avenue of rubber trees has just been planted, and behind these on each side are broad strips of cotton plants, looking beautiful with their yellow flowers or pinky-white bolls. American upland cotton grown in Uganda actually commands a higher price in the Manchester market than when it is grown in the United States. There appears to be practically no natural difficulty in its cultivation throughout the larger part of Uganda. A great development is only a question of organization and—money.

But I have forgotten that we have been moving swiftly along the Kampala road, and now we are almost in sight of the city. Almost, but not quite; for, to tell the truth, no one has ever seen Kampala. The traveller sees the Government buildings and residences neat and prim on one hill; he sees the King's house and his Ministers' houses on another. Upon a third, a fourth, or a fifth hill he may discern successively the Protestant Cathedral, the Catholic Mission, and the White Father's Monastery. But Kampala, the home of sixty thousand persons, is permanently invisible. The whole town is buried under the leavesof innumerable banana plantations, which afford shade and food to its people, and amid which their huts are thickly scattered and absolutely concealed.

King Daudi's Drummers at Kampala.

Watching the War-dance at Kampala.(Major Jenkins, Mr. Churchill, King Daudi, Sir H. Hesketh Bell.)

We were still three miles out of this "garden city" when the native reception began, and we travelled for a quarter of a mile between lines of white-robed Baganda, all mustered by their chiefs, and clapping their hands in sign of welcome. At last our procession of rickshaws reached a hillock by the roadside, at the top of which stood a pavilion, beautifully constructed of stout elephant grass like thin polished canes woven together with curious art. Down from this eminence, over a pathway strewn with rushes, came to meet us the King and his notables in a most imposing array. Daudi Chewa, the King or Kabaka of Uganda, is a graceful, distinguished-looking little boy, eleven years old. He was simply dressed in a flowing black robe edged with gold, and a little white gold-rimmed cap. Around him were the Council of Regency; and at his right hand stood the Prime Minister, Sir Apolo Kagwar, a powerful, determined-looking man, wearing a crimson, gold-laced robe, on which shonemany decorations, several British war medals, and the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

We all shook hands, and were then led up into the pavilion, where we took our seats on wicker chairs and ate sweet jellies while we conversed. The King, who is being most carefully educated by an English tutor, understands and speaks English quite well, but on this occasion he seemed too shy to say much more than "Yes" or "No," in a low, sweet drawl, and this formal interview soon came to an end.

The afternoon was consumed in ceremony; for the Commissioner of Uganda had to be sworn in the rank of Governor, to which he has been lately raised; and there was a parade of troops, in which some five or six hundred very smart-looking soldiers took part, headed by the Kampala company of Sikhs. It was not until the shadows began to lengthen that we visited the Kabaka on the Royal Hill. He received us in his Parliament House. In this large and beautifully-constructed grass building about seventy chiefs and Baganda notables were assembled. The little Kabaka sat on his throne, and his subjects grouped themselves around and before him. We weregiven seats at his side, and the Prime Minister explained that the Baganda would show us the ceremony of swearing a chief. One of the most portly and dignified of the councillors thereupon advanced into the centre of the room, threw himself face downward on the ground, and poured out a torrent of asseverations of loyalty. After a few minutes he rose and began brandishing his spears, chaunting his oath all the while, until he had created an extraordinary appearance of passion. Finally he rushed from the building to go and slay the King's enemies outside. It was not until he returned a moment later, calm, sedate, and respectable, that I realized, from the merry smile on his face and from the mirth of the company, that he was "only pretending," and that the ceremony was merely a representation given to interest us.

On the Way To Kampala.

Road Between Jinja and Lake Chioga.

The incident is remarkable because it illustrates the rapidity with which the Baganda people are leaving their past behind them. Already they laugh at their old selves. Ceremonies which twenty years ago had a solemn and awful significance, are to-day reproduced by this reflective people in much the same spirit as the citizens of Coventryrevive the progress of Lady Godiva. The same thing happened at the war-dance the next day. Two or three thousand men, naked and painted for war, rushed frantically to and fro to the beating of drums and barbaric music, with every sign of earnestness and even frenzy. Yet a few minutes later they were laughing sheepishly at one another, and bowing to us like actors before the curtain, and the Prime Minister was making a speech to explain that this was meant to be a pageant of the bad old times reproduced for our benefit. Indeed, so unaccustomed to carry arms had the warriors become that not one in ten could find a spear to arm himself with, and they had to come with sticks and other stage-properties.

Even a comic element was provided in the shape of a warrior painted all over in a ridiculous manner, and held by two others with a rope tied round his middle. This, we were told, was "the bravest man in the army," who had to be restrained lest he should rush into battle too soon. It is not easy to convey the air of honest fun and good humour which pervaded these curious performances, or to measure the intellectual progress which the attitude of the Baganda towards them implied.

War Dance at Kampala."The bravest man in the army."

War Dance at Kampala.

The Kabaka gave us tea in his house. It is a comfortable European building, quite small and modest, but nicely furnished, and adorned with familiar English prints and portraits of Queen Victoria and King Edward. Gradually he got the better of his shyness, and told me that he liked football more than anything else, and that his mathematical studies had advanced as far as "G.C.M.," initials which never fail to stir disagreeable school-day memories in my mind. He can write a very good letter in English, rides well on a nice pony, and will probably become a well-educated and accomplished man. Altogether it is a very pleasing spectacle to find in the heart of Africa, and amid so much barbarism, squalour, and violence, this island of gentle manners and peaceful civilization.

The next day was one unending pilgrimage. I have described how Kampala lies under the leaves of the plantain groves about the slopes of many hills. Each hill has its special occupants and purpose. Each of the different Christian missions has a hill to itself, and in the bad old days a Maxim gun was not thought at all an inappropriate aid to Christian endeavour. It would, however, be veryunfair to charge the missionaries with having created the feuds and struggles which convulsed Uganda twelve years ago. The accident that the line of cleavage between French and British influence was also the line of cleavage between Catholic and Protestant converts, imparted a religious complexion to what was in reality a fierce political dispute. These troubles are now definitely at an end. The arrival upon the scene of an English Catholic mission has prevented national rivalries and religious differences from mutually embittering one another. The erection of a stable Government and the removal of all doubts about the future of Uganda have led to an entire abatement of strife among devoted men engaged in a noble work. Not only is there peace among the different Christian missions themselves, but the Government of Uganda, so far from watching missionary enterprise with sour disfavour, is thoroughly alive to the inestimable services which have been and are daily being rendered by the missions to the native population, and excellent relations prevail.

The White Fathers' Mission at Kampala.

Children at the English Catholic Mission, Kampala.

In duty bound I climbed one hill after another and endeavoured to make myselfacquainted with the details of mission work in Kampala. It comprises every form of moral and social activity. Apart from their spiritual work, which needs no advocacy here, the missionaries have undertaken and are now maintaining the whole educational system of the country. They have built many excellent schools, and thousands of young Baganda are being taught to read and write in their own language. The whole country is dotted with subsidiary mission stations, each one a centre of philanthropic and Christian effort. There are good hospitals, with skilful doctors and nurses or sisters of charity, in connection with all the missions. The largest of these, belonging to the Church Missionary Society, is a model of what a tropical hospital for natives ought to be. Technical education is now being added to these services, and in this, it is to be hoped, the Government will be able to cooperate. I do not know of any other part of the world where missionary influence and enterprise have been so beneficently exerted, or where more valuable results have been achieved.

On Namirembe Hill, where the Church Missionary Society have their head-quarters, areally fine cathedral, with three tall, quaint, thatched spires, has been built out of very primitive materials; and this is almost the only building in Uganda which offers the slightest attempt at architectural display. Under the shadow of this I found myself on the afternoon of the 20th of November engaged in opening a high school for scholars who are more advanced than can be instructed in the existing establishments. A large and well-dressed audience, native and European, filled a good-sized room. The scholars crowded together in a solid mass of white-dressed youths upon the floor. The Kabaka and Sir Apolo Kagwar, who has himself five sons at the school, were upon the platform. The Governor presided. The Bishop made a speech. The schoolboys sang English songs and hymns in very good tune and rhythm. It was astonishing to look at the map of the British Empire hanging on the wall and to realize that all this was taking place near the north-western corner of the Victoria Nyanza.

Interior of Namirembe Cathedral.

It is eight miles from Kampala to Munyonyo, its present port on the lake, and this distance we covered in rickshaws over a shocking road. Munyonyo is itself little more than a jetty anda few sheds, but it affords a very good example of the salutary effects of cutting down the bush and forest. Mosquitoes and tsetses have been absolutely banished from the cleared area, and a place which a year ago was a death-trap is now perfectly safe and healthy. Plans are now on foot to make a new port a little farther along the coast at a point only five miles away from Kampala; and when this has been connected with the capital, as it must be, by a line of mono-rail tramway, there is every reason to expect a substantial and growing trade.

TheSir William Mackinnon, a venerable vessel of the Uganda Marine, awaited our party, and we steamed off on the smooth waters of the lake, through an archipelago of beautiful islands—each one more inviting than the other—and all depopulated by sleeping sickness. All day long we voyaged in these sheltered waters, and in the evening the lights of Jinja guided us to our destination. One cannot help admiring the luck which led Speke to his thrilling discovery of the source of the Nile. There are five hundred gulfs and inlets on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, and nothing distinguishes this one from therest. No current is perceptible to the ordinary mariner until within a few miles of the rapids, and although the presumption that so vast a body of fresh water would have an overflow somewhere had behind it a backing of strong probability, the explorer might have searched for a year without finding the spot. Instead of which he drifted and paddled gently along until all of a sudden the murmur of a distant cataract and the slight acceleration in the pace of his canoe drew him to the long-sought birthplace of the most wonderful river in the world.

It was dark when we landed at Jinja, and I could not properly see the preparations made for our reception by the local chiefs and the Indian traders, of whom there was a considerable crowd. The darkness, otherwise a cause of disappointment, afforded the opportunity for just the sort of brave act one so often finds a British officer ready to do. As the baggage was being landed from the steamer on to the jetty, a poor coolie slipped under his load, and in an instant was engulfed in the deep black waters below. Whereupon, as a matter of course, a young civilian in the Political Department jumped in after him in the darkness and among the crocodiles, and fished him out safeand sound, an act of admirable behaviour which has since received the recognition of the Royal Humane Society. I am not quite sure that in all parts of Africa so high a standard of honour and respect for the life of the humble native would prevail.

Jinja is destined to become a very important place in the future economy of Central Africa. Situated at the point where the Nile flows out of the Great Lake, it is at once on the easiest line of water communication with Lake Albert and the Soudan, and also where great water-power is available. In years to come the shores of this splendid bay may be crowned with long rows of comfortable tropical villas and imposing offices, and the gorge of the Nile crowded with factories and warehouses. There is power enough to gin all the cotton and saw all the wood in Uganda, and it is here that one of the principal emporia of tropical produce will certainly be created. In these circumstances it is a pity to handicap the town with an outlandish name. It would be much better to call it Ripon Falls, after the beautiful cascades which lie beneath it, and from whose force its future prosperity will be derived.

The Ripon Falls are, for their own sake, well worth a visit. The Nile springs out of the Victoria Nyanza, a vast body of water nearly as wide as the Thames at Westminster Bridge, and this imposing river rushes down a stairway of rock from fifteen to twenty feet deep, in smooth, swirling slopes of green water. It would be perfectly easy to harness the whole river and let the Nile begin its long and beneficent journey to the sea by leaping through a turbine. It is possible that nowhere else in the world could so enormous a mass of water be held up by so little masonry. Two or three short dams from island to island across the falls would enable, at an inconceivably small cost, the whole level of the Victoria Nyanza—over an expanse of a hundred and fifty thousand square miles—to be gradually raised six or seven feet; would greatly increase the available water-power; would deepen the water in Kavirondo Bay, so as to admit steamers of much larger draught; and, finally, would enable the lake to be maintained at a uniform level, so that immense areas of swampy foreshore, now submerged, now again exposed, according to the rainfalls, would be converted either into clear water or dry land,to the benefit of man and the incalculable destruction of mosquitoes.

The Ripon Falls(Source of the Nile).

As one watches the surging waters of the Ripon Falls and endeavours to compute the mighty energies now running to waste, but all within the reach of modern science, the problem of Uganda rises in a new form on the mind. All this water-power belongs to the State. Ought it ever to be surrendered to private persons? How long, on the other hand, is a Government, if not prepared to act itself, entitled to bar the way to others? This question is raised in a multitude of diverse forms in almost all the great dependencies of the Crown. But in Uganda the arguments for the State ownership and employment of the natural resources of the country seem to present themselves in their strongest and most formidable array. Uganda is a native State. It must not be compared with any of those colonies where there is a white population already established, nor again with those inhabited by tribes of nomadic barbarians. It finds its counterparts among the great native States of India, where Imperial authority is exercised in the name and often through the agency of a native prince and his own officers.

This combination of the external brain and the native hand results in a form of government often highly acceptable to the general body of the inhabitants, who are confronted with no sudden or arbitrary changes in the long-accustomed appearances of things. But it involves all the administration of affairs in a degree of complexity and delicacy which is absent from simpler and cruder systems. In such circumstances there cannot be much opening for the push and drive of ordinary commercial enterprise. The hustling business man—admirably suited to the rough and tumble of competitive production in Europe or America—becomes an incongruous and even a dangerous figure when introduced into the smooth and leisurely development of a native State. The Baganda will not be benefited either morally or materially by contact with modern money-making or modern money-makers. When a man is working only for the profits of his company and is judged by the financial results alone, he does not often under the sun of Central Africa acquire the best method of dealing with natives; and all sorts of difficulties and troubles will follow any sudden incursion of business enterpriseinto the forests and gardens of Uganda. And even if the country is more rapidly developed by these agencies, the profits will not go to the Government and people of Uganda, to be used in fostering new industries, but to divers persons across the sea, who have no concern, other than purely commercial, in its fortunes. This is not to advocate the arbitrary exclusion of private capital and enterprise from Uganda. Carefully directed and narrowly controlled opportunities for their activities will no doubt occur. But the natural resources of the country should, as far as possible, be developed by the Government itself, even though that may involve the assumption of many new functions.

Indeed, it would be hard to find a country where the conditions were more favourable than in Uganda to a practical experiment in State Socialism. The land is rich; the people pacific and industrious. There are no great differences between class and class. One staple article of food meets the needs of the whole population, and produces itself almost without the aid of man. There are no European vested interests to block the way. Nowhere are the powers of the Governmentto regulate and direct the activities of the people more overwhelming or more comprehensive. The superiority of knowledge in the rulers is commanding. Their control upon the natives is exerted through almost every channel; and besides the secular authorities—native and Imperial—there is the spiritual and educative influence of the missionaries to infuse human sympathy and moral earnestness into the regular machinery of State.

The first, and perhaps the greatest, difficulty which confronts the European Socialist is the choosing of Governors to whom the positively awful powers indispensable to a communistic society are to be entrusted. If a race of beings could be obtained when and as required from a neighbouring planet, whose practical superiority in virtue, science, wisdom, and strength was so manifest as to be universally acclaimed, this difficulty would disappear, and we might with composure await the decision of popular elections with all their defects and advantages. But in the absence of this dispensation the problem of how rulers are to be selected, and how, having been selected, they are to be controlled or changed, remains the first question of politics,even in days when the functions of government are, in general, restricted to the modest limits oflaissez-faire.

In Uganda, however, this difficulty does not exist. A class of rulers is provided by an outside power as remote from and, in all that constitutes fitness to direct, as superior to the Baganda as Mr. Wells's Martians would have been to us. The British administration is in itspersonnelabsolutely disinterested. The officials draw their salaries, and that is all. They have no end to serve, except the improvement of the country and the contentment of its people. By that test and that test alone are they judged. In no other way can they win approbation or fame. They are furthermore controlled in the exercise of their functions by a superior authority, specially instructed in this class of administration, and itself answerable to a Parliament elected on a democratic franchise. At no point in the whole chain of command is there any room for corruption, usurpation, or gross inefficiency.

It is clear that larger powers could be entrusted to the State in regard to the labour of its citizens than would ever be accorded to private employers. The subjects of everyEuropean Power have accepted the obligation of military service to defend their respective countries from external attack. The Baganda, relieved from this harsh obsession, have no higher duty than to cultivate and develop the beautiful land they live in. And if it were desired to organize scientifically, upon a humane and honourable basis, the industry of an entire population, and to apply the whole fruits of their labour to their own enrichment and elevation, no better conditions are likely to be discovered than those which now exist in Uganda.

It might at any rate be worth while to make such an experiment, if only as a prelude to those more general applications of the principles of Socialism which are held in some quarters to be so necessary.

Now the reader must really look at the map. To this point we have proceeded by train and steamer with all the power and swiftness of modern communication. If we have traversed wild and lonely lands, it has been in a railway carriage. We have disturbed the lion with the locomotive, and all our excursions have but led back to the iron road. But at Ripon Falls we are to let go our hold upon machinery. Steam and all it means is to be shut off. We are "to cut the painter," and, losing the impulsion of the great ship, are for a while to paddle about upon a vast expanse in a little cock-boat of our own. Back towards Mombasa, three days' journey will cover nine hundred miles. Forward, you will be lucky to make forty in the same time. Return at this moment is swift and easy. In a week it will be perhaps impossible. Going on means going through.

Everywhere great pathways are being cut into Africa. We have followed for nearly a thousand miles one leading from the East towards the centre. Far away from the North another line has been thrust forward by British efforts in peace and war. From Alexandria to Cairo, from Cairo to Wady Halfa, from Halfa to Berber, from Berber to Khartoum, from Khartoum to Fashoda, from Fashoda to Gondokoro, over a distance of nearly three thousand miles, stretches an uninterrupted service of trains and steamers. But between the landing-stage at Jinja and the landing-stage at Gondokoro there opens a wide gulf of yet unbridged, unconquered wilderness and jungle, across which and through which the traveller must crawl painfully and at a foot's pace, always amid difficulty and never wholly without danger. It is this gulf which we are now to traverse.

Between Nimule and Gondokoro.Capt. Read. Mr. Marsh. Dr. Goldie. Mr. Ormsby.Col. Wilson. Mr. Churchill. Capt. Dickinson. Lieut. Fishbourne, R.E.

The distance from the Victoria to the Albert Nyanza is about two hundred miles in the direct line, and it is all downhill. The Great Lake is hoisted high above the highest hill-tops of England. From this vast elevated inland sea the descending Nile water flows through a channel of three thousand fivehundred miles into the Mediterranean. The first and steepest stage of its journey is to the Albert Lake. This second body of water, which, except in comparison with the Victoria Nyanza, would be impressive—it is more than a hundred miles long—lies at an altitude of two thousand three hundred feet above the sea. So that in its first two hundred miles the Nile exhausts in the exuberant improvidence of youth about a third of the impulse which is to carry it through its venerable career. Yet this considerable descent of twelve hundred feet is itself accomplished in two short steps. There is one series of rapids, thirty miles long, below the Ripon Falls, and another of equal extent above the Murchison Falls. Between these two declivities long reaches of open river and the wide, level expanse of Lake Chioga afford a fine waterway.

Our journey from one great lake to the other divided itself therefore into three stages. Three marches through the forest to Kakindu, the first point where the Victoria Nile is navigable after the rapids; three days in canoes along the Nile and across Lake Chioga; and, lastly, five marches from the western end of Lake Chioga to the Albert Nyanza. Beyondthis, again, four days in canoes and steel sailing-boats, towed by a launch, would carry us to Nimule, where the rapids on the White Nile begin, and in seven or eight marches from there we should reach the Soudan steamers at Gondokoro. About five hundred miles would thus be covered in twenty days. It would take about the same time, if trains and steamers fitted exactly, to return by Mombasa and Suez to London.

Early in the morning of November 23rd our party set off upon this journey. Travelling by marches from camp to camp plays a regular part in the life of the average Central African officer. He goes "on Safari" as the Boer "on trek." It is a recognized state of being, which often lasts for weeks, and sometimes for months. He learns to think of ten days' "Safari" as we at home think of going to Scotland, and twenty days' "Safari" as if it were less than the journey to Paris. "Safari" is itself a Swahili word of Arabic origin, meaning an expedition and all that pertains to it. It comprises yourself and everybody and everything you take with you—food, tents, rifles, clothing, cooks, servants, escort, porters—but especially porters. Out of the range of steamthe porter is the primary factor. This ragged figure, tottering along under his load, is the unit of locomotion and the limit of possibility. Without porters you cannot move. With them you move ten or twelve miles a day, if all is well. How much can he carry? How far can he carry it? These are the questions which govern alike your calculations and your fate.

Every morning the porters are divided into batches of about twenty, each under its headman. The loads, which are supposed to average about sixty-five pounds, are also roughly parcelled out. As each batch starts off, the next rushes up to the succeeding heap of loads, and there is a quarter of an hour of screaming and pushing—the strongest men making a bee-line for the lightest-looking loads, and being beaten off by the grim but voluble headman, the weakest weeping feebly beside a mountainous pile, till a distribution has been achieved with rough justice, and the troop in its turn marches off with indescribable ululations testifying and ministering to the spirit in which they mean to accomplish the day's journey.

While these problems were being imperfectlysolved, I walked down with the Governor and one of the Engineer officers to the Ripon Falls, which are but half a mile from the Commissioner's house, and the sound of whose waters filled the air. Although the cataract is on a moderate scale, both in height and volume, its aspect—and still more its situation—is impressive. The exit or overflow of the Great Lake is closed by a natural rampart or ridge of black rock, broken or worn away in two main gaps to release the waters. Through these the Nile leaps at once into majestic being, and enters upon its course as a perfect river three hundred yards wide. Standing upon the reverse side of the wall of rock, one's eye may be almost on a plane with the shining levels of the Lake. At your very feet, literally a yard away, a vast green slope of water races downward. Below are foaming rapids, fringed by splendid trees, and pools from which great fish leap continually in the sunlight. We must have spent three hours watching the waters and revolving plans to harness and bridle them. So much power running to waste, such a coign of vantage unoccupied, such a lever to control the natural forces of Africa ungripped, cannot but vex and stimulateimagination. And what fun to make the immemorial Nile begin its journey by diving through a turbine! But to our tale.

Forest Scene near Ripon Falls.

The porters had by now got far on their road, and we must pad after them through the full blaze of noon. The Governor of Uganda and his officers have to return to Entebbe by the steamer, so it is here I bid them good-bye and good luck, and with a final look at Ripon Falls, gleaming and resounding below, I climb the slopes of the river bank and walk off into the forest. The native path struck north-east from the Nile, and led into a hilly and densely wooded region. The elephant-grass on each side of the track rose fifteen feet high. In the valleys great trees grew and arched above our heads, laced and twined together with curtains of flowering creepers. Here and there a glade opened to the right or left, and patches of vivid sunlight splashed into the gloom. Around the crossings of little streams butterflies danced in brilliant ballets. Many kinds of birds flew about the trees. The jungle was haunted by game—utterly lost in its dense entanglements. And I think it a sensation all by itself to walk on your own feet, and staff in hand, along these mysterious paths, amid suchbeautiful, yet sinister, surroundings, and realize that one is really in the centre of Africa, and a long way from Piccadilly or Pall Mall.

Our first march was about fourteen miles, and as we had not started till the hot hours of the day were upon us, it was enough and to spare so far as I was concerned. Up-hill and down-hill wandered our path, now plunged in the twilight of a forest valley, now winding up the side of a scorched hill, and I had for some time been hoping to see the camp round every corner, when at last we reached it. It consisted of two rows of green tents and a large "banda," or rest-house, as big as a large barn in England, standing in a nice, trim clearing. These "bandas" are a great feature of African travel; and the dutiful chief through whose territory we are passing had taken pains to make them on the most elaborate scale. He was not long in making his appearance with presents of various kinds. A lanky, black-faced sheep, with a fat tail as big as a pumpkin, was dragged forward, bleating, by two retainers. Others brought live hens and earthenware jars of milk and baskets of little round eggs. The chief was a tall, intelligent-looking man, with the winningsmile and attractive manners characteristic of the country, and made his salutations with a fine air of dignity and friendship.

Palm Tree near the Asua.

Banda with Escort of King's African Rifles.

The house he had prepared for us was built of bamboo framework, supported upon a central row of Y-shaped tree-stems, with a high-pitched roof heavily thatched with elephant-grass, and walls of wattled reeds. The floors of African "bandas" when newly made are beautifully smooth and clean, and strewn with fresh green rushes; the interior is often cunningly divided into various apartments, and the main building is connected with kitchens and offices of the same unsubstantial texture by veranda-shaded passages. In fact, they prove a high degree of social knowledge and taste in the natives, who make them with almost incredible rapidity from the vegetation of the surrounding jungle; and the sensation of entering one of these lofty, dim, cool, and spacious interiors, and sinking into the soft rush-bed of the floor, with something to drink which is, at any rate, not tepid, well repays the glaring severities of a march under an Equatorial sun. The "banda," however, is a luxury of which the traveller should beware, for if it has stood for more than a weekit becomes the home of innumerable insects, many of approved malevolence and venom, and spirillum fever is almost invariably caught from sleeping in old shelters or on disused camping-grounds.

Life "on Safari" is rewarded by a sense of completeness and self-satisfied detachment. You have got to "do" so many miles a day, and when you have "done" them your day's work is over. 'Tis a simple programme, which leaves nothing more to be demanded or desired. Very early in the morning, often an hour before daybreak, the bugles of the King's African Rifles sounded réveille. Every one dresses hurriedly by candle-light, eats a dim breakfast while dawn approaches; tents collapse, and porters struggle off with their burdens. Then the march begins. The obvious thing is to walk. There is no surer way of keeping well in Uganda than to walk twelve or fourteen miles a day. But if the traveller will not make the effort, there are alternatives. There is the rickshaw, which was described in the last chapter—restful, but tedious; and the litter, carried on the heads of six porters of different sizes, and shifted every now and then, with a disheartening jerk, to their shoulders and backagain—this is quite as uncomfortable as it sounds. Ponies cannot, or at least do not, live in Uganda, though an experiment was just about to be made with them by the Chief of the Police, who is convinced that with really careful stable management, undertaken in detail by the owner himself, they could be made to flourish. Mules have a better chance, though still not a good one. We took one with us on the last spell of "Safari" to Gondokoro, and were told it was sure to die; but we left it in apparently excellent condition and spirits.

An Encampment.

But the best of all methods of progression in Central Africa—however astonishing it may seem—is the bicycle. In the dry season the paths through the bush, smoothed by the feet of natives, afford an excellent surface. Even when the track is only two feet wide, and when the densest jungle rises on either side and almost meets above the head, the bicycle skims along, swishing through the grass and brushing the encroaching bushes, at a fine pace; and although at every few hundred yards sharp rocks, loose stones, a water-course, or a steep hill compel dismounting, a good seven miles an hour can usuallybe maintained. And think what this means. From my own experience I should suppose that with a bicycle twenty-five to thirty miles a day could regularly be covered in Uganda, and, if only the porters could keep up, all journeys could be nearly trebled, and every white officer's radius of action proportionately increased.

Nearly all the British officers I met already possessed and used bicycles, and even the native chiefs are beginning to acquire them. But what is needed to make the plan effective is a good system of stone, fumigated, insect-proof rest-houses at stages of thirty miles on all the main lines of communication. Such a development would mean an enormous saving in the health of white officials and a valuable accession to their power. Had I known myself before coming to Uganda the advantages which this method presents, I should have been able to travel far more widely through the country by the simple expedient of trebling the stages of my journeys, and sending porters on a week in advance to pitch camps and deposit food at wide intervals. And then, instead of merely journeying from one Great Lake to the other, I could,withinthe same limits of time, have explored the fertile and populous plateau of Toro, descended the beautiful valley of the Semliki, and traversed the Albert Lake from end to end, and skirted the slopes of Ruenzori. "If youth but knew...!"

But the march, however performed, has its termination; and if, as is recommended, you stop to breakfast and rest upon the way, the new camp will be almost ready upon arrival. During the heat of the day every one retires to his tent or to the more effective shelter of the "banda," to read and sleep till the evening. Then as the sun gets low we emerge to smoke and talk, and there is, perhaps, just time for the energetic to pursue an antelope, or shoot a few guinea-fowl or pigeons.

With the approach of twilight comes the mosquito, strident-voiced and fever-bearing; and the most thorough precautions have to be taken against him and other insect dangers. We dine in a large mosquito-house made entirely of fine gauze, and about twelve feet cubically. The bedding, which should if possible be packed in tin boxes, is unrolled during the day, and carefully protected by mosquito-nets well tucked in, against all formsof vermin. Every one puts on mosquito-boots—long, soft, leather leggings, reaching to the hips. You are recommended not to sit on cane-bottomed chairs without putting a newspaper or a cushion on them, to wear a cap, a scarf, and possibly gloves, and to carry a swishing mosquito-trap. Thus one moves, comparatively secure, amid a chorus of ferocious buzzings.

To these precautions are added others. You must never walk barefoot on the floor, no matter how clean it is, or an odious worm, called a "jigger," will enter your foot to raise a numerous family and a painful swelling. On the other hand, be sure when you put on boots or shoes that, however hurried, you turn them upside down and look inside, lest a scorpion, a small snake, or a perfectly frightful kind of centipede may be lying in ambush. Never throw your clothes carelessly upon the ground, but put them away at once in a tin box, and shut it tight, or a perfect colony of fierce-biting creatures will beset them. And, above all, quinine! To the permanent resident in these strange countries no drug can be of much avail; for either its protection is diminished with habit, or the doses have tobe increased to impossible limits. But the traveller, who is passing through on a journey of only a few months, may recur with safety and with high advantage to that admirable prophylactic. Opinions differ as to how it should be taken. The Germans, with their love of exactness even in regard to the most uncertain things, prescribe thirty grains on each seventh day and eighth day alternately. We followed a simpler plan of taking a regular ten grains every day, from the moment we left Port Said till we arrived at Khartoum. No one in my party suffered from fever even for a day during the whole journey.

Our second day's march was about the same in length and character, except that we were nearer the river, and as the path led through the twilight of the forest we saw every now and then a gleam of broad waters on our left. At frequent intervals—five or six times during the day—long caravans of native porters were met carrying the produce of the fertile districts between Lake Chioga and Mount Elgon into Jinja. Nothing could better show the need of improved communications than this incipient and potential trade—ready to begin and thrusting forward along bush-paths on theheads of tottering men. For the rest, the country near the river seemed the densest and most impenetrable jungle, hiding in its recesses alike its inhabitants and its game.

The third morning, however, brought us among "shambas," as the patches of native cultivation are called; and the road was among plantations of bananas, millet, cotton, castor-oil, and chilies. Here in Usoga, as throughout Uganda, the one staple crop is the banana; and as this fruit, when once planted, grows and propagates of its own accord, requiring no thought or exertion, it finds special favour with the improvident natives, and sustains them year after year in leisured abundance, till a sudden failure and a fearful famine restore the harsh balances of the world.

After a tramp of twelve miles, and while it was still comparatively early—for we had started before dawn—we reached Kakindu. The track led out of the forest of banana-groves downwards into more open spaces and blazing sunlight, and there before us was the Nile. Already—forty miles from its source, near four thousand from its mouth—it was a noble river: nearly a third of a mile inbreadth of clear, deep water rolling forward majestically between banks of foliage and verdure. The "Chioga flotilla," consisting of the small steam launch,Victoria, a steel boat, and two or three dug-out canoes, scooped out of tree-trunks, awaited us; and after the long, hot business of embarking the baggage and crowding the native servants in among it, was completed, we parted from our first relay of escorts and porters, and drifted out on the flood.

The next three days of our life were spent on the water—first cruising down the Victoria Nile till it flows into Chioga, and then traversing the smooth, limpid expanses of that lake. Every evening we landed at camps prepared by the Busoga chiefs, pitched our tents, lighted our fires, and erected our mosquito-houses, while dusk drew on, and thunderstorms—frequent at this season of the year—wheeled in vivid splendour about the dark horizon. All through the hot hours of the day one lay at the bottom of massive canoes, sheltered from the sun by an improvised roof of rushes and wet grass. From time to time a strange bird, or, better still, the rumour of a hippo—nose just peeping above the water—enlivenedthe slow and sultry passage of the hours; and one great rock, crowded with enormous crocodiles, all of whom—a score at least—leaped together into the water at the first shot, afforded at least one really striking spectacle.

As the Victoria Nile approaches Lake Chioga, it broadens out into wide lagoons, and the sloping banks of forest and jungle give place to unbroken walls of papyrus-reeds, behind which the flat, surrounding country is invisible, and above which only an isolated triangular hill may here and there be descried, purple in the distance. The lake itself is about fifty miles long from east to west, and eleven broad, but its area and perimeter are greatly extended by a series of long arms, or rather fingers, stretching out in every direction, but especially to the north, and affording access by water to very wide and various districts. All these arms, and even a great part of the centre of the lake, are filled with reeds, grass, and water-lilies, for Chioga is the first of the great sponges upon which the Nile lavishes its waters. Although a depth of about twelve feet can usually be counted on, navigation is impeded by floating weeds and water-plants; and when thestorms have swept the northern shore, numerous papyrus-tangled islands, complete with their populations of birds and animals, are detached, and swim erratically about the lake to block accustomed channels and puzzle the pilot.

For one long day our little palpitating launch, towing its flotilla of canoes, plashed through this curious region, at times winding through a glade in the papyrus forest scarcely a dozen yards across, then presently emerging into wide flood, stopping often to clear our propeller from tangles of accumulating greenery. The middle of the lake unrolls large expanses of placid water. The banks and reeds recede into the distance, and the whole universe becomes a vast encircling blue globe of sky and water, rimmed round its middle by a thin band of vivid green. Time vanishes, and nothing is left but space and sunlight.

All this while we must carefully avoid the northern, and particularly the north-western shore, for the natives are altogether unadministered, and nearly all the tribes are hostile. To pursue the elephants which, of course (so they say), abound in these forbidden precincts is impossible; to land for food or fuel would be dangerous, and even to approach mightdraw a splutter of musketry or a shower of spears from His Majesty's yet unpersuaded subjects.

The Nile leaves the north-west corner of the lake at Namasali and flows along a broad channel above a mile in width, still enclosed by solid papyrus walls and dotted with floating islands. Another forty miles of steaming and we reach Mruli. Mruli is a representative African village. Its importance is more marked upon the maps than on the ground. An imposing name in large black letters calls up the idea of a populous and considerable township. All that meets the eye, however, are a score of funnel-shaped grass huts, surrounded by dismal swamps and labyrinths of reeds, over which clouds of mosquitoes danced feverishly. A long wattled pier had been built from terra firma to navigable water, but the channel by which it could be approached had been wholly blocked by a floating island, and this had to be towed painfully out of the way before we could land. Here we were met by a fresh escort of King's African Rifles, as spick and span in uniform, as precise in their military bearing, as if they were at Aldershot; by a mob of fresh porters, and, lastly, by the only friendlytribe from the northern bank of the river: and while tents were pitched, baggage landed, and cooking-fires began to glow, these four hundred wild spearmen, casting aside their leopard skins, danced naked in the dusk.

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