674. BANTU NEGROES 



bananas, which produce all the year round), and these are coincident with 

 the two short dry seasons whicli follow the heavy rains of the winter and 

 summer. 



There is a considerable growth of mushrooms throughout the whole 

 country, and five species are wholesome. They are much liked by the 

 Baganda. and are equally appreciated by Europeans. The flavour of one 

 kind is quite sufficient to provoke the raptures of a gourmet. The 

 Baganda grow sesanmm, which produces a seed full of oil. No less than 

 twenty kinds of peas and beans, certain herbs the leaves of which greatly 

 resemble spinach, and various seeds, fruits, roots, and leaves of the forest 

 are in use as articles of food. The sugar-cane grows most luxuriantly in 

 the regions near the lake shore or near rivers, and produces an excellent 

 cane sugar. Before the arrival of Indians and Europeans, however, the 

 Baganda never made sugar. They only chewed the stalk of the cane for 

 its delicious sweet juice. Tomatoes grow abundantly in Uganda now, and 

 are no doubt eaten by the natives, who also sell them to Europeans. 

 The cotiee-tree is possibly indigenous to the forests of Uganda and the 

 neighbouring islands. The Baganda chew the sweet pulp round the beans, 

 bnt make no use of cofifee as a beverage. A plant which has spread 

 rai)idly throughout Uganda in a few years is the Cape gooseberry, the 

 fi-uits of which have an agreeable sub-acid flavour, and a taste very much 

 like cherries. 



Excellent tobacco is gi-own by them with very little care. It grows 

 sometimes luxm-iantly on their middens or on places where they 

 have allowed cow-dung or refuse of human habitations to accumulate. 

 Tobacco is smoked in clay pipes, which are often most artistic in design, 

 ornament, and colouring. It is not, I believe, taken nowadays as snuif. 

 Both sexes smoke. Hemp is grown, but when smoked by the people 

 in water pipes it so infm-iates them that hemp-smoking is virtually 

 prohibited by native law. The word for " hemp-smoker " is practically 

 synonymous with ''brigand." '-fanatic," or "debauchee." 



As regards their agriculture, it is not in any way remarkable. They 

 devote themselves so largely to their banana groves, which they are careful 

 to keep clear of undergrowth, that they have not developed any special 

 skill in dealing with other food crops. Needless to say, they have no 

 idea of ploughing, the jAough being an implement of the Caucasian, and 

 utterly foreign to the Negro* and in early days to the INIongolian. The 

 soil is tilled almost entirely by the hoe. Neither have the Baganda 

 much idea of irrigation or draining. 



The imi)ro\ement shown in the growth of tobacco on dung-hills does 



* It is remarkable that even the wild pagan Gala of inner Xorth-East Africa use 

 a plough, .showing that they are mainly a Caucasian race in this as in other respects. 



