366 UGANDA [ch. xiii 
purple, yellow, blue, and fiery crimson. Kampalla is 
the native town, where the little King of Uganda, a 
boy, lives, and his chiefs of State, and where the native 
council meets ; and it is the headquarters of the missions, 
both Church of England and Roman Catholic. 
Kampalla is an interesting place ; and so is all 
Uganda. The first explorers who penetrated thither, 
half a century ago, found in this heathen State, of 
almost pure negroes, a veritable semi-civilization, or 
advanced barbarism, comparable to that of the little 
Arab-negro or Berber-negro sultanates strung along the 
southern edge of the Sahara, and contrasting sharply 
with the weltering savagery which surrounded it, and 
which stretched away without a break for many hundreds 
of miles in every direction. The people were industrious 
tillers of the soil, who owned sheep, goats, and some 
cattle; they wore decent clothing, and hence were 
styled “ womanish ” by the savages of the Uppei Nile 
region, who prided themselves on the nakedness of their 
men as a proof of manliness; they were unusually 
intelligent and ceremoniously courteous; and, most 
singular of all, although the monarch was a cruel despot, 
of the usual African (whether Mohammedan or heathen) 
type, there were certain excellent governmental customs, 
of binding observance, which in the aggregate might 
almost be called an unwritten constitution. Alone 
among the natives of tropical Africa the people of 
Uganda have proved very accessible to Christian teach¬ 
ing, so that the creed of Christianity is now dominant 
among them. For their good fortune, England has 
established a protectorate over them. Most wisely the 
English Government officials, and as a rule the mis¬ 
sionaries, have bent their energies to developing them 
along their own lines, in government, dress, and ways 
