92 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



the directions of a thrice-dreamt dream, came to a place in the 

 forest, where was an aged man on a throne between two rows of 

 armed warriors, seated on mats, his long beard white with age, and 

 all his men fair as white people and clothed in white robes. Then 

 Kintu, for it was he, bid the peasant hasten to summon Ma'anda 

 thither, but only with his mother and the messenger. At the Court 

 Ma'anda recognised the stranger whom he had that very night 

 seen in a dream, and so believed his words and at once set out 

 with his mother and the peasant. But the Katikiro, or Prime- 

 Minister, through whom the message had been delivered to the 

 king, fearing treachery, also started on their track, keeping them 

 just in view till the trysting-place was reached. But Kintu, who 

 knew everything, saw him all the time, and when he came forward 

 on finding himself discovered the enraged Ma'anda pierced his 

 faithful minister to the heart and he fell dead with a shriek. 

 Thereupon Kintu and his seated warriors instantly vanished, and 

 the king with the others wept and cried upon Kintu till the deep 

 woods echoed Kintu, Kintu-u, Kintu-u-u. But the blood-hating 

 Kintu was gone, and to this day has never again been seen or 

 heard of by any man in Buganda. The references to the north 

 and to Kintu and his ghostly warriors " fair as white people " 

 need no comment 1 . It is noteworthy that in some of the Nyassa- 

 land dialects Kintu (Chintu) alternates with Mulungu as the name 

 of the Supreme Being, the great ancestor of the tribe 2 . 



Then follows more traditional or legendary matter, including 

 ~. ,,, an account of the wars with the fierce Wakedi, who 



The wa- 



, past wore iron armour, until authentic history is reached 

 with the atrocious Suna II. (1836 60), father of 

 the scarcely less atrocious M'tesa. After his death in 1884 

 Buganda and the neighbouring states passed rapidly through a 

 series of astonishing political, religious, and social vicissitudes, 



1 The legend is given with much detail by H. M. Stanley in Through the 

 Dark Continent, Vol. I. p. 344 sq. Another and less mythical account of the 

 migrations of " the people with a white skin from the far north-east " is quoted 

 from Emin Pasha by the Rev. R. P. Ashe in Two Kings of Uganda, p. 336. 

 Here the immigrant Wahuma are expressly stated to have " adopted the 

 language of the aborigines" (p. 337). 



2 Sir H. H. Johnston, op. cit. p. 514. 



