If you wish to make a Baganda perfectly happy, all you need to do is to say, "Way wally," which means a sort of supremely earnest "Well done." The moment this talismanic expression has left your lips, the native to whom it is addressed will probably fall on his knees, and, clasping his two hands together, will sway them from side to side, as if he were playing a concertina, while all the time his face beams with a most benignant and compulsive smile, and he purrs, "A—o, a—o, a—o," as much as to say, "My cup of joy is overflowing." It is not in accordance with our ideas that man should kneel to man, and one feels uncomfortable to see it done. Yet it should not be thought that the action, as performed by the Baganda, involves or implies any servility. It is their good manners—and meant to be no more. Nor, once you are used to it, do they seem to lose at all in dignity. Only they win your heart.
The road from Entebbe to Kampala passes through delicious country. Along its whole length a double avenue of rubber trees has just been planted, and behind these on each side are broad strips of cotton plants, looking beautiful with their yellow flowers or pinky-white bolls. American upland cotton grown in Uganda actually commands a higher price in the Manchester market than when it is grown in the United States. There appears to be practically no natural difficulty in its cultivation throughout the larger part of Uganda. A great development is only a question of organization and—money.
But I have forgotten that we have been moving swiftly along the Kampala road, and now we are almost in sight of the city. Almost, but not quite; for, to tell the truth, no one has ever seen Kampala. The traveller sees the Government buildings and residences neat and prim on one hill; he sees the King's house and his Ministers' houses on another. Upon a third, a fourth, or a fifth hill he may discern successively the Protestant Cathedral, the Catholic Mission, and the White Father's Monastery. But Kampala, the home of sixty thousand persons, is permanently invisible. The whole town is buried under the leaves of innumerable banana plantations, which afford shade and food to its people, and amid which their huts are thickly scattered and absolutely concealed.
King Daudi's Drummers at Kampala.
Watching the War-dance at Kampala.
(Major Jenkins, Mr. Churchill, King Daudi, Sir H. Hesketh Bell.)
We were still three miles out of this "garden city" when the native reception began, and we travelled for a quarter of a mile between lines of white-robed Baganda, all mustered by their chiefs, and clapping their hands in sign of welcome. At last our procession of rickshaws reached a hillock by the roadside, at the top of which stood a pavilion, beautifully constructed of stout elephant grass like thin polished canes woven together with curious art. Down from this eminence, over a pathway strewn with rushes, came to meet us the King and his notables in a most imposing array. Daudi Chewa, the King or Kabaka of Uganda, is a graceful, distinguished-looking little boy, eleven years old. He was simply dressed in a flowing black robe edged with gold, and a little white gold-rimmed cap. Around him were the Council of Regency; and at his right hand stood the Prime Minister, Sir Apolo Kagwar, a powerful, determined-looking man, wearing a crimson, gold-laced robe, on which shone many decorations, several British war medals, and the Order of St. Michael and St. George.