370 UGANDA [ch. xtii 



that I had never even reahzed that it was an Ameri- 

 canism. 



At Bishop Hanlon's mission, where I lunched with 

 the Bishop, there was a friend. Mother Paul, an 

 American ; before T left America I had promised that 

 I would surely see her, and look into the work which 

 she and the Sisters associated with her were doing. It 

 was delightful seeing her ; she not merely spoke my 

 language, but my neighbourhood dialect. She informed 

 me that she had just received a message of goodwill for 

 me in a letter from two of "the finest" — of course I 

 felt at home when in mid- Africa, under the Equator, 1 

 received in such fashion a message from two of the 

 men who had served under me in the New York pohce.^ 

 She had been teaching her pupils to sing some lines of 

 the " Star-spangled Banner " in English, in my especial 

 honour ; and of course had been obliged, in writing it 

 out, to use spelling far more purely phonetic than I had 

 ever dreamed of using. The first lines ran as follows : 

 (Some of our word sounds have no equivalent in 

 Uganda. ) 



" O se ka nyu si bai di mo nseli laiti 

 (O say can you see by the morn's^ early light) 



Wati so pulauli wi eli adi twayi laiti silasi giremi " 

 (What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.) 



After having taught the children the first verse in 

 this manner. Mother Paul said that she stopped to avoid 

 brain fever. 



^ For the benefit of those who do not live in the neighbourhood 

 of New York, I may explain that all good or typical New Yorkers 

 invariably speak of their police force as " the finest "" ; and if any 

 one desires to know what a " good " or " typical " New Yorker is, 

 I shall add, on the authority of either Brander Matthews or the 

 late H. C. Bunner — I forget which — that when he isn't a 

 Southerner or of Irish or German descent, he is usually a man 

 born out West of New England parentage. 



■' Sic. 



