Mention has been made of the uninviting appearance of the Mkikuyu at Nairobi and the naked Mkavirondo living on the eastern shore of the lake. Here, over 400 miles west of Nairobi and 175 west of Port Florence, we found the splendidly-built, tidily-dressed, clean Waganda. The women of this tribe are almost as well developed as the Zulu women. The Maganda also carries loads on her head. It is hard to understand why these natives, so far away from civilization, are so neatly dressed. The Maganda is a good native.
We were but three miles north of the Equator, at an elevation of 4,000 feet, and the comfortable climate, instead of an almost unbearable one one would expect to encounter here, is a surprise. In the evening the air became so cool that the veranda was vacated for a seat inside.
Less than 150 white persons live in Entebbe, but with the Arabs, Indians, and many natives, the population reaches 20,000. Were government employees to leave, very few Europeans would be left in the capital.
This was one place in which the moving picture was not to be seen, and one is getting pretty well out of the world, so to speak, when he has out-trod the sphere of that common means of amusement. But there was a phonograph, owned by an Indian, who lived across the road from where I slept. Indian music is weird with a vengeance. The scale is cast in high C, and the flats and sharps and other "harmonics" that went with the music seemed to be like a clashing of rasps, files and grating iron. At 2 o'clock in the morning the "tormentor" was started, and its weird notes unmercifully pierced the equatorial air until daylight. The police sometimes stopped the music for a couple of nights, but it was soon heard again. I became well known at the police station through lodging complaints against the owner of that infamous phonograph.
The wharf at the lake was piled high with merchandise and cotton bales. Some of the imports were to be moved into the interior as far as the Belgian Congo. The means of conveyance was the heads of natives—porters, as they are called. From 300 to 600 porters, all looking half-starved, assembled in front of a shipping agent's office and waited for orders to start on the trip. Horses cannot live in Uganda, so natives take the horses' place. Sixty pounds is the standard load for a porter to carry. The goods are packed and shipped in quantities conforming to that weight, when it is possible to do so. The articles carried may be grubhoes, chairs, a box containing canned vegetables or food, a bed spring, bedding, a table, five-gallon cans of oil—anything in the nature of food, clothing, or household furnishings. When the article exceeds 60 pounds, two, three, and even four porters, with bamboo poles, are assigned to the load. The small army of porters—the African freight train—start, with a stick in their hand and 60 pounds of freight on their heads. The destination is Toro, 200 miles further into Africa. White men are in charge of the "freight train." Each porter takes with him a portion of rice or cornmeal. His meat is furnished by the white men in charge, who carry rifles, and by that means game is shot en route. Thirty days is the time required to travel the 200 miles, and for carrying 60 pounds of goods that distance a porter receives $3. A new "freight train" will take up the goods at Toro and advance the cargo further into the wild country. Certain packs of natives will not go further than the sub-stopping place, as natives beyond are generally hostile to tribes stopping at that point. In that way traders living in remote parts are supplied with goods.
We were right in the heart of the sleeping-sickness zone. It has been estimated that 300,000 natives have been swept away by this strange and fatal disease. Remains of huts and other mute evidences of tribal existence at certain parts of the lake districts indicate the wiping out of whole tribes by this pestilence, which accounts for the British government forcing the natives from the lake islands to live on the mainland. Some of these ejected natives try to return to their old home, and it was said to be a pathetic sight when they were forced to change their abode. The islands are infested with the fly whose bite injects the death virus. A strip of territory two miles from the shore of the lake is prohibited ground, and legal punishment is provided for any one found over the fly-infested lines.
Sleeping sickness is caused from a bite of the tsetse fly. It is as large as a horse-fly, and when it bites a victim it usually draws blood. The poison injected infects the blood, and is thought to be extracted from crocodiles by the fly while resting on that beast. It may be weeks, and even months, before the poison affects the victim. Anyway, mopiness will become noticeable, then drowsiness, accompanied by loss of appetite; then an overpowering desire to sleep overtakes the victim. All the time he is becoming emaciated from lack of food. This condition continues for months in some instances, and there are cases where victims have moped and drowsed for years. Some of the deaths are very painful, while others apparently die in their sleep. Three flies, with Latin names, carry the sleeping sickness virus—the Glossina palpalis, the Glossina morsitans, and the Glossina fusca. They are generally termed "morsitans," "palpalis" and "fusca." The most advanced medical scientists may be found in this part of the world trying to find out something definite about the virus and devising means for its eradication, but are as yet in the dark concerning how to combat the suffering and fatalities that follow in the wake of this strange disease. Sleeping sickness is prevalent in some parts of Rhodesia, Central Africa and in other interior sections of the Dark Continent.
The means employed to eradicate the fly is by cutting the brush from the shore of the lake. A fly will not remain in the sun long, so when the brush has been cut and a fly's resting place, the shade, is removed, he leaves the brush-barren district and seeks shady fields. A grass—lemon grass, it is called—with a leaf a quarter of an inch wide, which grows to two feet high, is often planted on the land from which the brush has been cleared. The grass has an oily, lemon taste, which the tsetse fly does not fancy, and he leaves the cleared section.
In the early days Stanley and those that came later to these parts crossed the lake in canoes, rowed by natives. That was a dangerous undertaking, as the lake then, as to-day, was inhabited by hippopotami and crocodiles. As stated in Leg Two, the "hippo" will not harm a person in the water, but he may overturn a boat that attempts to ride over him, when the crocodile would devour those cast overboard.
Most of the wild animals in that part of the world are protected from hunters by government laws, but the hippopotamus and the crocodile are left to the mercy of any who wish to kill them. The big water-cows are very destructive to growing grain and vegetables. They come out at night to forage, when they destroy gardens, corn fields and grain. These animals travel a mile or more from the shore for food. The only time when a "hippo" will attack a person is if the latter should be between the water and the beast.