BANTU NEGROES 671 



the advent of Europeans, have done nothing whatever towards domesti- 

 cating the interesting, beautiful, valuable, and eatable beasts and birds 

 with which their country abounds. Mutesa and Mwanga had slight 

 leanings towards the keeping of menageries. Mwanga caused a swamp at 

 the bottom of his palace to be excavated and made into an ornamental 

 lake in which he kept crocodiles. Mutesa and his predecessor Suna were 

 said to have had tame lions and young elephants at their court, but no 

 European observer ever saw these, and it is doubtful whether these 

 creatures lived long in captivity. Occasionally a native catches and tames 

 a young baboon or a colobus monkey. Until the last few years it never 

 occurred to any of them to domesticate the Egyptian and spur-winged 

 geese which swarm on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza. Yet these birds, 

 if caught young, are most easily tamed and become just as fearless of man 

 as the domestic goose. Guinea-fowls, if caught young, are equally easy to 

 domesticate. There is no reason why (as the Baganda are handy enough 

 at catching anything, from a hippopotamus to a snake) they should not 

 capture and tame all the interesting creatures round them, and domesticate 

 such as are actually of use to man. 



As regards the food of these people, they are fond of meat when they 

 can get it, either by killing goats, sheep, cattle, or wild animals. Meat 

 is sometimes cooked in water with red pepper and the spicy grains of the 

 amomum, or it is grilled over the fire on a rough gridiron. A common 

 practice is to run lumps of flesh on to wooden spits and stick them up in 

 a slanting position over the fire. Fish, of course, enters largely into the 

 diet of the people, and I have already mentioned that locusts, white ants. 

 and the kungu fly are also eaten. A kind of thick soup or curry is 

 made of meat or fish, which is eaten with banana "stodge" as a relish. 



The staple food is bananas. Sweet potatoes are also eaten, boiled or 

 roasted, and ground-nuts and grains, such as Indian corn, but to a very 

 limited extent. You frequently meet children herding goats in the fields 

 or along the roads, and these invariably have a roasted potato in one 

 hand and a small store of raw ones in the other. They are very quick 

 at answering questions as to the correct road to any village, and munch 

 away at the roasted potato in the intervals between question and answer. 

 These random snacks of bananas or potatoes seldom answer the purpose 

 of a regular meal. The fixed repast consists of bananas, or rather 

 plantains,* prepared in the following way: A large earthenware pot is 

 filled with plantains, then covered over with banana leaves, and a little 

 water added. The plantains are first of all peeled, and as they grow 



* " Banana " is more the name of the short, sweet fruit of which wine i.s made. 

 "Plantain "is the long banana which is nearly always eaten unripe and cooked, and 

 which is not sweet. 



