Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/578

 flanks of Mt Elgon and the types of Forest Negroes); (2) Bantu negroes (Banyoro, Bairu, Basese, Basoga, Ba, konjo, rBaganda, Masaba and Kavirondo); (3) Nite negroes (Aluru, Bari, Madi, Acholi, Gang, Lango, Latuka, Tesi, Sabei (Nandi), Turkana and Karamojo); (4) Hamitic (some tribes on islands and the north coast of Lake Rudolf; and the remarkable “Hima” or “Huma” aristocracy in Unyoro, Buganda, Toro and Ankole). The pigmies are generally known as Bambute or Bakwa in the Semliki forests. They are both reddish yellow and brownish black (according to individual variation) in skin colour, with head hair often tending to russet, and body hair of two kinds black and bristly on the upper lip, chin, chest, axillae and pubes; and yellowish and fleecy on the cheeks, back and limbs. Their faces are remarkable for the long upper lip and the depressed broad nose with enormous alae. Associated with these pigrnies is the “Forest Negro” type (Lendu, Lega, Baamba, Banande) of normal human stature, but short-legged and unusually prognathous. The Bantu negroes represent the future ruling race of the protectorate, and include the remarkable Baganda people. These last, prior to the arrival of Arabs and Europeans, displayed a nearer approach to civilization than has as yet been attained by an unaided Negro people. Their dynasty of monarchs can be traced back with tolerable certainty to a period coincident with the reign of Henry IV. of England ( 1400). The first Buganda king was probably a Hamite of the Hima stock (from Unyoro). Until recent years the Baganda and most of the other Bantu peoples of the protectorate worshipped ancestral and nature spirits who had become elevated to the rank of gods and goddesses. The Baganda are now mainly Christian. There is also a “totem” system still in vogue. All the Baganda belong to one or other of twenty-nine clans, or “Bika,” which are named after and have as totem familiar beasts, birds, fish or vegetables. The Baganda are not a very moral people, but they have an extreme regard for decency, and are always scrupulously clothed (formerly in bark-cloth, now in calico). As a general rule, it may be said that all the Bantu tribes in the western half of the protectorate, including the Basoga, are careful to consider decency in their clothing, while the Nilotic negroes are often completely nude in both sexes. More or less, absolute nudity among men is characteristic even of the Bahima (Hamites). But in this aristocratic caste the women are scrupulously clothed.

The Nile negroes and Hima are tall people. The former are seldom handsome, owing to their flat faces and projecting cheek-bones. The Bahima are often markedly handsome, even to European eyes. In the Bahima the proportion of Caucasian blood is about one-fourth; in the Nile negroes and Bantu from one-sixteenth to none at all. The aboriginal stock of the Uganda Protectorate is undoubtedly the pigmy-prognathous, which has gradually been absorbed, overlaid or exterminated by better developed specimens of the Negro sub-species, or by Negro-Caucasian hybrids from the north and north-east.

The languages spoken in the Uganda Protectorate belong to the following stocks: (1) Hamitic (Murle and Rendile of Lake Rudolf); (2) Masai (Bari, Elgumi, Turkana, Sūk, &c.); (2a) Sabei, on the northern slopes of Elgon and on Mt Debasien; (2b) Nilotic (Acholi, Aluru, Gang, &c.); (3) Madi (spoken on the Nile between Aluru and Bari, really of West African affinities); (4) Bantu (Lu-ganda, Runyoro, Lu-konjo, Kuaniba, Lihuku, the Masaba languages of west Elgon and Kavirondo, &c.); and lastly, the unclassified, isolated Lendu and Mbuba spoken by some of the pigmy-prognathous peoples.

Towns.—The seat of the British administration is Entebbe (“a throne”) on the south shores of a peninsula projecting into the Victoria Nyanza in 0° 4′ 2″ N. 32° 27′ 45″ E. It contains a number of commodious official residences, churches, hospitals, a laboratory, covered market, &c. The port is protected by a breakwater and provided with a pier.-on which is the customs-house. The native capital of Buganda is Mengo (pop. about 70,000), situated some 20 m. N. by E. of Entebbe. It is a straggling town built on seven steep hills: on one hill is the royal residence; on another (Namirembe =the hill of peace) was the cathedral of St Paul, destroyed by lightning in September 1910, and other buildings of the Anglican mission. St Paul’s was a fine Gothic church of brick, built by the Baganda in 1901–1904. After its destruction steps were at once taken to rebuild the cathedral. On a third hill are the cathedral and mission buildings of the Roman Catholics. On still another hill, Kampala, the British fort and government and European quarters are situated. Some 7 m. S. by E. of Kampala, and connected with it by monorail, is Kampala Port, on" Victoria Nyanza. The capital of the Eastern province is Jinja, on the Victoria Nyanza, immediately above and east of the Ripon Falls. It is a thriving trading centre and port. Hoima is the administrative headquarters in Unyoro; Butiaba is a trading port of some importance on Lake Albert; Mbarara is the capital of Ankole. Kakindu, Mruli, Fowera and Fajao are government stations and trading posts on the Victoria Nile; (q.v.), Nimule and (q.v.) are similar stations on the Mountain Nile. Bululu is a port on-Lake Ibrahim.

Agriculture and Trade.—A few plantations are owned and managed by Europeans. Otherwise agriculture is in the hands of the natives. Some Baganda chiefs have started cotton, rubber and cocoa. plantations, the botanic department assisting in this enterprise. Pará and Funtumia rubber trees are also cultivated by the department. (For the work of the botanic, forestry and scientific department, the government plantations, &c., see the Colonial Report Miscellaneous], No. 64.) A forest area of 150 sq. m. has been leased to a European company. Trade is mainly conducted by native (i.e. Arab, Somali and Negro) traders, by British Indians and by Germans. The value of the trade during 1901–1902 was a proximately £400,000 in imports (largely railway material) and $50,000 in exports. The articles exported were ivory, rubber, skins and hides, and livestock (for consumption in East Africa). These, except livestock, continue to be the main items of export. For the six years 1903–1904 to 1908–1909 the imports increased from £147,000 to £419,000, and the exports—produce of the protectorate—from £43,000 to £127,000. The imports included the transit trade (with the Belgian Congo and German East Africa), which grew from £8460 in 1903–1904 to £82,615 in 1908–1909. The transit trade in the last-named year included bullion valued at £33,000, being raw gold from the Kilo mines, Belgian Congo. Among the new industries are sugar and coffee plantations, while cotton, ground-nuts and rubber figure increasingly among the exports, cotton and cottonseed being of special importance. Cotton goods, chiefly “Americani,” are the chief imports, machinery, hardware and provisions ranking next. Large quantities of rice are imported from German East Africa. About 50% of the imports are from the United Kingdom and British possessions.

Communications.—In connexion with the railway from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza a steamship service is maintained on the lake between Port Florence, Entebbe and other ports, including those in German territory. Government boats also ply on the Victoria Nile and Lake Kioga. (Ibrahim) and on Albert Nyanza and the Mountain Nile. A railway (begun in 1910), some 50 m. long, runs from Jinja to Kakindu, i.e. along the Victoria Nile from its point of issue from the Nyanza to where it becomes navigable above Lake Kioga. Good roads connect Entebbe and Butiaba (the steamboat terminus on Albert Nyanza) and other districts. There is a direct telegraphic service to Gondokoro and Khartum and to Mombasa. The postal service is well organized.

Administrative Divisions and Government.—The protectorate is divided into five provinces-Rudolf, Eastern (formerly central), kingdom of Buganda, Western, and Northern (formerly Nile)—and these again into a number of administrative districts. The kingdom of Buganda, which has a thoroughly efficient and recognized native government, is subdivided into no fewer than nineteen “counties” or districts, but the other provinces have as a rule only three or four subdivisions.

The protectorate is administered by a governor and commander in-chief, under the colonial office, residing at Entebbe, on the north-western coast of the Victoria Nyanza. He is assisted by a staff of officials similar to the f functionaries of a Crown colony, but there is at present no legislative council. The natives are ordinarily under the direct rule of their own recognized chiefs. but in all the organized districts the governor alone has the power of life or death, of levyin taxes, of carrying on war, of controlling waste lands and forests, and of administering justice to non-natives. In the case of Buganda special terms were accorded to the native king and people in the settlement dated the 10th of March 1900. The king was secured a minimum civil list of £1500 a year out of the native revenues; pensions were accorded to other members of the Buganda royal family; the salaries of ministers and governing' chiefs were guaranteed; compensation in money was paid for removing the king’s control over waste lands; definite estates were allotted to the king, royal family, nobility and native landowners; the native parliament or “Lukiko” was reorganized and its powers were defined; and many other points in dispute were settled. The king was accorded the title of “His Highness the Kabaka of Buganda,” and his special salute was fixed at eleven uns. By this agreement the king and his people pledged themselves to pay hut and gun taxes to the administration of the protectorate. Somewhat similar arrangements on a lesser scale were made with the king of Ankole, the kings of Toro and Unyoro, and with the much less important chieftains or tribes of other districts. The territories north and north-east of these Bantu kingdoms are inhabited by Nilotic negroes and up to 1909 were left almost unadministered, except in close vicinity to the Nile banks.

The education of the natives is confined to the schools maintained by the missionaries, who are doing an excellent work. Manual,