302 AFRICA SPEAKS 



sale, to be held at the Royal Palace, of surplus queens. 

 The event was attended by the entire native male pop- 

 ulation of Kampala and the surrounding district, for 

 those who didn't go to bid or buy went there to ogle 

 the wares and envy, or maybe commiserate, the 

 buyers. The auction was a huge success, for every 

 R Uganda snob and toady was eager to boast of one 

 ex-queen among his wives. The bidding was Hvely 

 and high, and the king's money chest was enriched 

 by just the extent to which his harem was tliinned out. 

 This method was a great improvement over the ancient 

 one of throwing the unwanted wives to the crocodiles. 



Now we journeyed through Hoima and Masindi, 

 and a lovely blooming country where tropical flow- 

 ers and shrubs blossomed everyw^here and where 

 prosperous native plantations deployed their fertile 

 acres on each side of the perfect roads that wound in 

 and out among groves of pawpaws and bananas. 



A drive through miles of deep, cool forests, where 

 elephant herds roam, brought us to the top of an 

 escarpment, and there far below us in the valley lay 

 Albert Nyanza, a sheet of blue water that reflected 

 back the rays of a sinking sun, for the day was near 

 its end. Reyond, in the hazy distance, was a barrier 

 of high mountains, from the sides of which smoke 

 columns were rising skyward from the fires of many 

 viUages. There Hved black men as far behind the 

 Ruganda in civihzation as he is behind the white man. 

 The mountains and the viUages that clung to their 

 sides lay in that magic country, the Congo. 



In the morning we crept down the serpentine trail 

 to the foot of the escarpment ; then crossed the marshy 

 flat that was once part of the lake bed, to the little 



