Soldiering and Sport in Uganda 



their legs, and, in fact, for everything; and banana 

 plantations are to be seen everywhere. 



I was rather pleased with Kampala, the ancient 

 capital formerly known as Mengo, although I do 

 not think the place would attract me for any length 

 of time. Like Rome, it is built on seven hills, 

 resulting in the fact that you are always walking up 

 or down a gradient, which may in time become 

 somewhat monotonous. The Baganda natives 

 seem happy and prosperous, and quite civilized, 

 especially when compared with such tribes as my 

 late friends the " Kavirondo." They are dressed 

 in a simple costume made out of the fibre of the 

 bark cloth tree. As both men and women affect 

 this style of clothing, it was probably responsible 

 for the old ideas that in these districts there were 

 no men, owing to the similarity of the dress of the 

 sexes. A Baganda native kilt is shown in the 

 illustration. 



The manufacture of this bark cloth forms an 

 important native industry. Although the tree does 

 not ofrow in dense forests, it is to be found 

 scattered over the whole of Uganda. An interest- 

 ing fact is its extraordinary fertility, in illustration of 

 which I may mention that a small twig of it, 

 apparently lifeless, when placed in the ground, will 

 burst into leaf with the first rain that falls. The 

 second stripping of the tree produces a finer 

 material than the first. After the stripping, banana 

 leaves are tightly strapped round for a period of 

 three months and upon their being taken off a new 



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