lOO UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



candlestick or flower-vase, which a European chooses to submit 

 to them as a model. These imitations are curious ; but it would 

 be a mistake to imagine that they are in common use in Uganda 

 either among natives or among Europeans. There is a potters' 

 settlement about half-an-hour's distance from Fort Kampala. 

 Here I have watched the men at work. They did not use a 

 potter's wheel. The vessel, resting on a soft pad of dry banana- 

 leaves, was turned and shaped by hand. A sharp sherd was used 

 to scrape ofT any superfluous clay. The rim of the large bowls 

 was added separately in the shape of a long clay sausage. I saw 

 only men employed as potters. They must have a deft hand, a 

 quick eye, and considerable practice to turn out such good 

 results without the assistance of even a potter's wheel. The 

 bomb-shaped water-vessel costs about two or three pence ; the 

 large bowls are somewhat dearer. The pots are dried in the 

 shade, and then burnt in a huge fire of elephant-grass and 

 reeds. Very often this burning takes place right in the middle 

 of the wide public road. The Waganda, like other African 

 races, have their own special national variety of pipe. Men 

 and women smoke. The Uganda clay-pipe has a long reed- 

 stem and a short black triangular clay bowl running into a 

 point downwards. It costs about a farthing. Occasionally pipes 

 with coloured geometrical patterns in white and red are brought 

 as curios for sale to Europeans ; but I have never seen a 

 native smoke one of these coloured fancy pipes. " Gabunga," 

 the admiral in command of the king's fleet of war-canoes, 

 came to me one day with two of these fancy-pipes which he 

 wished to exchange for a short English pipe. Having effected 

 the exchange, he went on his way rejoicing. The chiefs eagerly 

 copy many of the little differences in habits which they notice 

 between themselves and the English. In their heart, however, 

 not a few of them resent having lost, owing to the presence of 

 the British Government, their former uncontrolled authority. 



One of the great chiefs, the Mulondo, told me that he had 

 lost all control over his peasants, because he could no longer 

 inflict punishments on them just as he pleased ; and if he tried 

 to insist on their doing a certain work for him, they simply 

 left and migrated in a body to the plantations of some other 

 chief. The Mulondo was not averse to doing a little " busi- 

 ness" now and then, and selling to me, with protestations of 

 friendship, some antelope skin at exactly double the price 1 would 



