AT KAMPALA 131 



women often stick a bunch of leaves outside their petticoat 

 in memory of bygone days. The dancers usually carry a stick 

 or leafy branch ; a good many have a tiny reed whistle to add 

 to the musical din. One dancer, I noticed, was very proud of 

 a head-dress he had invented for the occasion ; it was a small 

 reed-bowl worn as a cap, with a tuft of feathers stuck on top of 

 it. The band consisted of drums, horns, gourd-rattles, and almost 

 anything that would swell the noise, and yet they managed some- 

 how to maintain a monotonous tune, somewhat mournful and 

 wailing, but of assistance to the dancers in keeping time. 



The wonderful conversion of the Waganda to Christianity is 

 a striking illustration how easily vast multitudes may be influ- 

 enced by a few men, just as the Ephesian throng was ready to 

 shout that their Diana was great. That there are a number 

 of sincere and real conversions among the Waganda may be 

 granted, but it is rather dilftcult to believe that so many thousand 

 men, women, boys, and girls should all have realised at the 

 same moment and suddenly, not only the inestimable superiority 

 of Christianity over Mohammedanism and heathenism, but should 

 have grasped the relative merits between Protestantism and 

 Roman Catholicism, so as to enable them to choose either in pre- 

 ference to the other. It seems sad that a fratricidal war should 

 have broken out between the two factions, as related by Lugard ; 

 but intolerance and bigotry are dangerously near to every sudden 

 conversion, and Uganda was not to be the exception. 



I happened to be at Kampala when the Protestant cathe- 

 dral on Namirembe hill was blown down by a violent gust of 

 wind. A new cathedral was speedily erected. The huge grass- 

 thatched roof requires some hundreds of tall palm-stem pillars 

 to support it. The cathedral carries a plain cross. The elegant 

 reed-work of the walls is neatly finished off, but otherwise it 

 is simple in the extreme. It is an impressive sight to see the 

 thousands of worshippers flocking to it on a Sunday morning. 



To a certain extent this universal conversion by the thou- 

 sand is an outcome of the deeply-grafted feudal system. The 

 great chief becomes a Protestant or a Roman Catholic, as 

 the case may be, and at once most of his sub-chiefs adopt 

 the same form of worship ; peasants, as a matter of course, 

 follow their sub-chiefs. It becomes a mark of superiority to 

 be able to read and write, and immediately every one tries to 

 attain to this level. A good bell-wether is of inestimable value 



