I 34 
BEAUTIFUL UGANDA 
women are kept, the rest being quartered chiefly with his mother, 
known by the title of Nyamasore, or queen-dowager. They stood in 
little groups at the doors, looking at us, and evidently passing their 
own remarks, and enjoying their own jokes, on the triumphal proces¬ 
sion. At each gate as we passed, officers on duty opened and shut it 
for us, jingling the big bells which are hung upon them, as they some¬ 
times are at shop-doors, to prevent silent, stealthy entrance. 
“The first court passed, I was even more surprised to find the 
unusual ceremonies that awaited me. There courtiers of high dignity 
stepped forward to greet me, dressed in the most scrupulously neat 
fashions. Men, women, bulls, dogs and goats were led about by strings; 
cocks and hens were carried in men’s arms; and little pages, with rope 
turbans, rushed about, conveying messages, as if their lives depended 
on their swiftness, every one holding his skin cloak tightly about him, 
lest his naked legs might by accident be shown.” 
The details of Captain Speke’s reception by the king are too 
voluminous to be given here, and in place of this we will give a brief 
description of Kampala, the present king’s capital. Or this, perhaps, 
had best be styled Mengo, which is the name of the king’s quarter. 
Mengo is a city of seven hills, each suburb of the straggling town 
being a separate hill, the sides being often so steep that they cannot 
be ascended on horseback. Between these hills are marshy bottoms, 
with streams slowly percolating through them. The inhabited parts 
of the town, which has a population of about 70,000, are clean and 
picturesque, from the king’s palace to the dwellings of the common 
people. 
On each side of the broad roadway are reed fences, behind which 
are yards in which bananas grow and back of these the family man¬ 
sions rise. Everything is kept neat and clean and the handsome trees 
and abundant vegetation make it a city of gardens. In fact, so dense 
is the growth of bananas, which afford shade and food to the people, 
that the huts of the people are quite concealed. All that the traveler 
sees in approaching the city are the government buildings and resi¬ 
dences neatly built on one hill; the palace of the king and dwellings of 
his ministers on another; on still others the cathedral and other Chris¬ 
tian churches. Everything else is lost under a broad sea of leaves 
