664 BANTU NEGROES 



are beautifully dressed, being rendered perfectly soft and supple on the 

 under-surface. The hide is continually scraped with a knife till all the 

 fibres are loosened, and it is then rubbed with sand and fat. Lion 

 and leopard skins, the skins of many antelopes, wild-cats, and monkeys, 

 are dealt with in this manner. Especially noteworthy are the beautiful 

 rugs that are made of the skin of the little blue-grey Cephalophits antelopes 

 so common in Uganda. These are sewn together with exquisite fineness, 

 so that the joints are scarcely observed. 



There is a good deal of ironwork carried on by the Baganda, who 

 make hoes of the usual African shape, elegantly shaped knives, spear- 

 heads, pincers or tongs, finger-rings, chains, axes and choppers, sickles, 

 needles used in the making of bark- cloth and the plaiting of grass, and 

 sometimes iron bells. The best iron (which apparently is hasmatite) comes 

 from Busindi. 



As regards 'musical instruments, the Baganda are great flute-players. 

 They make flutes out of the thick canes of sorghum, elephant grass, the 

 Phragmites reed, sugar-cane, or bamboos, and play on them very agreeably. 

 The shape of their drums may be seen from the accompanying illustration. 

 The type of the Uganda drum is met with all down Eatt Central Africa 

 from the Upper Nile regions to the Zambezi. A description of it was 

 given in the last chapter in relation to the Bahima. Another kind of 

 drum is also in use, especially in Buddu. This is more of a West African 

 type. It is a hollow tree-trunk about three feet long, covered at the top 

 with the skin of a Varanus lizard. It is slung by a cord round the neck 

 and one shoulder of the man, who plays it with his hands. There are 

 also small hand drums, which are easily carried about. Then there is a 

 kind of drum not often seen nowadays, of a singularly elegant shape, 

 with a circular stand, from which rises a round column of wood about a 

 foot in length. This widens out again at the top and forms a basin-shaped 

 drum, over which is strained a skin neatly fastened by strings round the 

 neck of the column. 



Another musical instrument which should be catalogued is of a kind 

 which the coast natives call " kinanda." An example of this is well 

 illustrated in the author's book on British Central Africa. A number of 

 thin slips of iron or of resonant wood with the ends turning up are 

 fastened to a small sounding-board, and are twanged with the fingers. 

 Horns are made of long gourds open at both ends, the opening at the 

 narrow end .being very small. The blow-hole is cut into the gourd at 

 about six inches from the small end, and the sound is modified by the 

 player closing or opening the small end of the gourd with his finger. 

 Other trumpets are made of the horns of Tragelaphus antelopes, which 

 are well suited for this purpose by their convolutions. Small horns of 



