G80 BAXTU NEGROES 



" Pa-" prefix has become '• \Va-," which is, perhaps, a degree nearer to 

 the original form. This may seem a trifling matter to occuiw so much 

 space in print, l)ut taken in connection with other features of the Luganda 

 language it argues that there has been a marked separation for centuries 

 ]-,et\veen the Negro people of the northern and western coast -lands of the 

 Victoria Nyanza and the countries behind them to the north and west, 

 which for a period of untold length have been permeated and ruled by 

 a Gala aristocracy. 



The Eacanda historians of the last fortv vears who have told the 

 traditions of' their country to European inquirers have, however, not 

 been satisfied to commence the dynasty of their kings with Kimera. 

 [They trace the descent of Kimera further back, through several mythical 

 \i monarchs of the derai-god order, to a being named Kintu, who (as may 

 |be seen in the last chapter) exists also in the traditions of Unyoro. 

 Kintu may be a personification of the first influential emigrants from 

 Gala countries who gave an impetus to civilisation in Unyoro. Official 

 Uganda genealogies have adopted this mythical Kintu and a number of 

 his ancestors, who were Gala kings or chiefs in Unyoro, as the first 

 monarchs of the Uganda dynasty, which would be the same thing as 

 though in Great Britain we recognised the Electors of Hanover before 

 George I. as " Kings of England." The first real king of Uganda was this 

 Kimera, who, at a rough guess, must have reigned over a jiortion of 

 Uganda about the time that Henry IV. of Lancaster was King of England — 

 that is to say, about the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the days 

 of Kimera and his immediate successors the kingdom of L'ganda was a 

 small tract of country about an average fifty miles in breadth, extending 

 along the lake shore from the mouth of the Katonga River on the west, 

 to the vicinity of Mengo (the modern District of Kiadondo) on the east. 

 Later on, but not so very long ago, the forest district of Kiagwe (which is 

 bounded by the Victoria Nile, and in which remnants of a Pygmy race 

 still linger) was added to the dominions of the king of Uganda, though 

 its own native ruler was apparently recognised as a vassal prince, and the 

 governor of Kiagwe to this day is a very im^iortant. semi-independent 

 iunctionary in the kingdom. 



On the west and north by degrees Uganda stretched out its hands over 

 Singo, Busuju. and ^Nfawokota; and, finally, Buddu, the largest district in 

 the Uganda kingdom at the present day, which lies on the west coast of 

 the Victoria Nyanza, was conquered by a king of Uganda named Junju, 

 who lived in tlie latter part of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, 

 though this kingdom has been gradually built up by the conquest of a 

 numl)er of lake^, coast provinces formerly attached to the western Hima 

 kingdoms," its extension until comparatively recent days was a}iparently 



