BANTU NEGROES 661 



shape or design, nor has it that charming ornament characteristic of the 

 canoe paddles of Benin. The paddles are stout and strong, with a heart- or 

 spade-shaped blade, about three to four feet in length, and cut out of a 

 solid piece of wood. Like the canoe, they are generally smeared with fat 

 and red clay. All these canoes and planks are hewn. No such thing as a 

 saw exists anywhere in Negro Africa, unless where introduced by Europeans. 

 Planks are often obtained by splitting tree-trunks by means of wedges, and 

 adzing down the thick layers of wood t<> the required thinness. 



The Baganda certainly make artistic pottery. Their country provides 

 them with many different kinds of clay. The red soil makes the large red 

 earthenware, the kaolin gives them a white clay, and a black soil provides 

 them with a dark bluish clay, a substance much favoured for making certain 

 articles. This black pottery is further beautified by a plumbago glaze 

 which is made from the graphite which occurs so frequently in the rocks of 

 Uganda, Very handsome cups, vases, and milk-pots made with these black 

 clays may be seen in the British Museum among the collections made by 

 my expedition. They show particular taste and variety in the construction 

 of pipe bowls. These are decorated with bold patterns in black and white 

 or red and black. In one kind of tobacco pipe there is a simple bowl which 

 is fastened on to the pipe stem, and which . contains the tobacco. On this is 

 laid a second and larger bowl which tits tightly over the tobacco. It is 

 perforated at the top, and contains live embers from the fire. This second 

 and removable bowl is fitted with a small handle so that it can be easily 

 detached. 



The Baganda carpenters now make chairs after the European model — 

 in fact, a curious relic of the Speke and Grant expedition remained in the 

 perpetuated camp stools. These useful articles were much admired by the 

 Baganda, and after the departure of Speke and Grant two or three which 

 were left behind in the possession of Mutesa were imitated over and over 

 again by the carpenters, and now no person of importance is without one of 

 these portable seats. In like manner the Baganda soon began to imitate 

 in their pottery the shapes of European cups, candlesticks, and goblets. 

 In all their pottery they show T such taste and artistic skill that it is quite 

 possible they may eventually produce schools of pottery like those of Japan 

 and China. Gourds are cut into many different shapes for drinking vessels, 

 or are left in their natural form to serve as bottles and beer calabashes. 

 The exterior of these gourds is also covered with ornament drawn by means 

 of red-hot needles. 



Another article in which they display exquisite taste is the long tube 

 made simply of a hollowed cane with which they suck up banana beer (the 

 object being to draw up only the liquid into the mouth, and not fragments 

 of pulp or rind). This cane is enclosed in a covering of tightly plaited straw, 



