BANTU NEGROES 



651 



centre. It is composed of a vast framework of palm-frond stems or flexible 

 sticks lined inside with closely tied canework. This framework of the 

 roof really extends uninterruptedly to the ground, and round the edge of 

 the hut and its narrow verandah, if it has one. It is strengthened from 

 the ground upwards by a circle of poles which are placed perpendicularly 

 in the ground all round the periphery of the house, and which fit into the 

 roof just where it begins to slope upwards towards the apex. The roof is 

 supported in the interior by tall, straight poles made of the stems of the 

 wild date palm. In the fore part of the hut, near the main door, at 

 about an equal distance between the projection over the porch and the 

 apex of the roof, there is a screen or partition wall with supports in the 

 centre made of these date-palm columns going right up to the roof. 



In all Uganda buildings of the old type (I am obliged to put in this 

 proviso, because the Baganda are changing their customs so rapidly, and 

 many of them are now building houses after the European style in bricks) 

 the palm-trunk column is an ever-present and picturesque feature. The 

 dwellings of kings and chiefs, churches, mosques, and schools are all 

 distinguished by this forest of smooth, straight, slender palm-trunks. 

 Their use enables the ]\Iuganda of the better class to give his roof a high 

 pitch and his dwelling 

 a stateliness which 

 makes it something 

 far superior to the 

 ordinary African hut, 

 however extensive 

 may be the ramifica- 

 tions of these low- 

 pitched dwellings. Of 

 course the houses of 

 the peasantry are 

 greatly inferior in 

 appearance to those 

 of the gentle-folk, 

 and many of them at 

 a distance look like 

 untidy haycocks. The 

 thatch of the better 

 class of dwellings is 

 in itself a special 



feature of Uganda and such countries to the west as follow Uganda 

 fashions. The thatch is extremely thick, perhaps as much as a foot in 

 density. It is of fine long grass, and all over the front of the house. 





AX UGANDA CROWD 



