372 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



is the native town, where the little King of Uganda, a boy, 

 lives, and his chiefs of state, and where the native council 

 meets; and it is the head-quarters of the missions, both 

 Church of England and Roman Catholic. 



Kampalla is an interesting place; and so is all Uganda. 

 The first explorers who penetrated thither, half a century 

 ago, found in this heathen state, of almost pure negroes, a 

 veritable semi-civilization, or advanced barbarism, compa- 

 rable to that of the little Arab-negro or Berber-negro sul- 

 tanates strung along the southern edge of the Sahara, and 

 contrasting sharply with the weltering savagery which 

 surrounded it, and which stretched away without a break 

 for many hundreds of miles in every direction. The peo- 

 ple were industrious tillers of the soil, who owned sheep, 

 goats, and some cattle; they wore decent clothing, and 

 hence were styled "womanish" by the savages of the Upper 

 Nile region, who prided themselves on the nakedness of 

 their men as a proof of manliness; they were unusually 

 intelligent and ceremoniously courteous; and, most singu- 

 lar of all, although the monarch was a cruel despot, of the 

 usual African (whether Mohammedan or heathen) type, 

 there were certain excellent governmental customs, of bind- 

 ing observance, which in the aggregate might almost be 

 called an unwritten constitution. Alone among the natives 

 of tropical Africa the people of Uganda have proved very 

 accessible to Christian teaching, so that the creed of Chris- 

 tianity is now dominant among them. For their good for- 

 tune, England has established a protectorate over them. 

 Most wisely the English Government officials, and as a rule 

 the missionaries, have bent their energies to developing 

 them along their own lines, in government, dress, and ways 



