From Entebbe to Fort Portal. 
The din of the chattering, laughing and shouting was a little 
diminished in the hard bits of road only where a steep up-hill 
would set even those who were not loaded panting. From 
every little village along the way the natives ran out, curious 
to see the sight and exchange chatter and laughter with the 
porters. Now and then the travellers met a caravan bringing- 
salt from Toro, or ivory from the Congo, or even a white trader 
travelling- with his own escort. 
The native escort exercised a certain discipline over the 
numerous party, and intervened from time to time to adjust 
quarrels and disputes started, as a rule, by the porters who, in 
order to lighten their own labour, would requisition by force 
any other natives whom they might meet on the road. 
The blacks are on the whole childlike, good-natured and 
peaceable, or ill-tempered and savage, according as they are 
managed. With a little tact and goodwill, not without 
necessary firmness, it is easy to direct their impulsive natures. 
The great majority of the caravan consisted of Baganda, 
the real native population of Uganda, whose anthropological 
characteristics are so diverse as to presuppose the product of 
mingled elements. Some of their features are distinctly 
negroid ; as, for instance, woolly, jet black hair ; the nose sunk 
at the root, flat and wide ; broad, protuberant lips and 
projecting ears. But the prognathism is not marked, and 
the brow is wide and not retreating. They are usually 
lean, not muscular, and do not give the impression of a 
very strong people. 
Their manners and customs seem more advanced than in 
many other African tribes. They neither dye nor grease their 
skin ; they do not tattoo their persons nor cover themselves 
with decorative scars, and with the exception of the children 
81 
G 
