396 THE LAND OF THE LION 
between the different departments and the Uganda Rail- 
road in British East Africa. 
No, backward the East African may be, mysteriously 
retarded he has been, but unfaithful or ungrateful he surely 
is not. Let the story of the fight at Lubwas Boma in the 
days of the Uganda mutiny bear witness. 
The story of that mutiny is not yet known as it should 
be. It is a story of mismanagement and muddle, not so 
much by the men on the spot, as by the authorities at Down- 
ing Street, who did not grasp the situation themselves, 
and would not listen to those who did. It is the story, so 
often repeated in the history of England’s Colonial enter- 
prises, of a little band of neglected and unsupported white 
folk, making good at last for the Homeland’s sake, against 
overwhelming odds. It is also the story of how the black 
man that had learned to trust the leadership of the mis- 
sionary, gladly threw his life away to support a cause he 
knew nothing of, save that it was the missionary’s cause. 
The Soudanese battalions, whose mutiny cost Eng- 
land so dear, would never have mutinied if they had been 
accorded, not sympathy, but scantest justice. England 
broke faith with them, orders from home forced their 
officers to break faith, and the men, under new and unknown 
leaders cannot be much blamed for what they did. ‘That, 
however, is a long and a sad story, and as usual, the heavy 
bills had in time to be paid in precious blood and outpoured 
treasure. 
But it was the heroic aid given to England by the 
Waganda, for whom England’s missionaries had done so 
much, that broke the heart of the mutiny almost at the 
very beginning, and saved for England the immensely 
important strategic position she held on the great lakes 
and at the sources of the Nile. 
The story of the fight at Lubwas Boma, in 1897, has 
been told, yet few have heard it. It is a great story and 
