BANTU NEGROES 



649 



garments of bark-cloth 

 (shawls and strips wound 

 round about the body), 

 or they may wear, as 

 many of them now do, 

 European and Indian 

 clothes ; but any Muganda 

 of good position wears over 

 and above everything else 

 a garment like a toga 

 of white calico which is 

 knotted over the right 

 shoulder. There is a grow- 

 ing partiality amongst the 

 Baganda men for dressing 

 in white. They like to 

 have long, trailing gar- 

 ments covering them from 

 their neck to their feet. 

 A turban of twisted strips 

 of white cloth is worn 

 round the head. Attired 

 in this way, wholly in 

 white, a Baganda crowd 

 moving amongst the 

 stately groves and emerald- 

 green lawns of their fertile country recall irresistibly (as I have already 

 related in Chapter III.) the conventional pictures of evangelical piety which 

 represented the Blessed walking in the Vales of Paradise. The women 

 rarely don white cloth. If they quit their native " lubugo," it is in order 

 to wear Manchester calicoes of gaudy colours. The Baganda when 

 travelling, and the upper classes at all times, use sandals. These are 

 made of very stiff ox hide, are very thick, and curved upwards at the 

 edges so that the foot rests in a sort of boat-like hollow. Usually this 

 thick leather is gracefully ornamented by intricate designs in colour. 

 Amongst the upper classes the sandal is kept on to the foot by strips of 

 soft otter fur drawn through holes in the edge of the sandal. 



The house in Uganda, or in countries subject to Uganda influence, 

 differs from any other in Negro Africa. The huts of the peasants, of 

 course, come back somewhat closely to the common beehive shape, though 

 they exhibit a larger porch. The typical Uganda house, however, is 

 constructed as follows : The ground plan is an almost perfect circle with, 





359. MAKING BARK-CLOTH 



