C>12 BANTU NEGROES 



wars, raids, and civil wars wliic-li took jtlaci' midci' the kings Mutcsa. Kiwtnva, 

 Kaicina. and .Mwaiiga. and which resulted froin the counter-raids of Unyoro. 

 I5ut another cause seems to have lieen the exhaustion of men and women 

 l)v premature debauchery. From some cause or another the women of 

 Uganda have ])ecome very poor breeders. If a woman has more than one 

 child she is looked upon as quite remarkable, and is given a special honorific 

 title. In former days, the Baganda women being so frequently barren, it 

 was the custom of the men. at any rate amongst the chiefs and aristocracy, 

 to raid the neighbouring countries of Unyoro, Toro, and Busoga for wives, 

 or to obtain large numbers of women by the slave trade. Since this means 

 of i-ecruiting for the marriage market has been put a stop to, e\en though 

 at the same time wars and massacres have come to an end, the present 

 p)opulation remains in a rather stationary condition. If the Baganda are to 

 be saved from dying out as a race — and I cannot but believe and hope they 

 will — it will be entirely through the introduction of Christianity and the 

 teaching of the missionaries, both Koman and Anglican. The introduction 

 of monogamy as a universally recognised principle now amongst all people 

 who desire to conform to mission teaching may be the salvation of Uganda, 

 strange to say. The people, through this teaching, are now becoming 

 ashamed of marrying girls who have led a bad life before marriage. The 

 appreciation of female chastity is distinctly rising, while at the same time 

 young men find debauchery no longer fashionable, and endeavour to marry 

 early and become the fathers of families. If ever a race needed a Puritan 

 revival to save it from extinction, it is the Baganda, and if ever Christian 

 missions did positi\e and unqualified good among a Negro race, this good 

 has been accomplished in Uganda, where their teaching has turned the 

 current of the more intelligent people's thoughts towards the physical 

 advantages of chastity. 



The other disedses to which this people are subject are numerous. They 

 suffer from malarial fexer, but not to the same extent as Europeans. It 

 is a mistake to suppose that they are immune from h;emoglobinuric, or 

 blackwater fever. They do enjoy, apparently, immunity from this 

 disease luithin their oivn hind, but if a Muganda (joes (for instance) to 

 the Congo Forest, or to the south shore of the Victoria Xyanza, he is as 

 likely as any European to get hlackwater fever and die of it. Small- 

 pox is a constantly recurring plague which ravages this country, as it 

 does most parts of tropical Africa. The people also sutfer from a mild 

 form of chicken-pox and from mumps. Dysentery is not often met 

 with amongst the natives of Uganda itself, but the Baganda are 

 [larticularly subject to this disease if they quit their own country and 

 travel to <jther })arts of Mu^ Protectorate. Under these circumstances the 

 disease is a vei'V fatal one. Ihe Baganda suffer much from that 



