CHAPTER XVI 



BANTU NEGROES— (continued) 



(2) The Baganda and Basoga 



THE Kingdom of Uganda is the most important province (politically) 

 in the Protectorate, and perhaps one of the best organised and 

 most civilised of African kingdoms at the present day. In fact, putting 

 aside the empires of Abyssinia and .Morocco (as entirely independent states 

 ranking with other world Powers). Uganda would take a high place among 

 those purely Negro kingdoms which retain any degree of national rule, 

 and would compare favourably in importance with Sokoto, Wadai, Lunda, 

 or Barotse. It is difficult to fix on a 'physical type of Negro peculiarly 

 characteristic of Uganda, there being no such thing; but Uganda 

 civilisation, arts, and crafts have a certain distinct cachet of their own, 

 not to be altogether explained by the ancient introduction of an Hamitic 

 civilisation, though this undoubtedly was the main stimulus which caused 

 a land of Pygmies and West African Negroes to emerge into the semi- 

 civilised, refined, and. in some respects, artistic people who have risen to 

 such prominence in the politics of Central Africa under that long line of 

 astute kings of whom Mutesa was a striking example. 



The present population of Uganda is composed of three main elements. 

 The country undoubtedly was first inhabited by people of the Pygmy- 

 Prognathous type similar to those already described in connection with 

 the Congo Forest. To the present day in the great forest of Kiagwe, 

 which covers a large proportion of South-Eastern Uganda, near the Eipon 

 Falls, there are individuals of stunted growth, broad, flat noses, and long 

 upper lips, who might very well be classed as Congo Pygmies: The next 

 element to be described is that of the West African Negro type, which 

 constitutes the bulk of the population at the present time, and which, no 

 doubt, invaded Uganda in succession to the original Pygmy-Prognathous 

 settlers when the land was mostly covered with great forests. I call this 

 element " West African," because many of the Baganda are strikingly like 

 that rather pronounced form of Negro characteristic of the west coast of 

 Africa. The West African Negro type is undoubtedly the foundation of 



