We all shook hands, and were then led up into the pavilion, where we took our seats on wicker chairs and ate sweet jellies while we conversed. The King, who is being most carefully educated by an English tutor, understands and speaks English quite well, but on this occasion he seemed too shy to say much more than "Yes" or "No," in a low, sweet drawl, and this formal interview soon came to an end.
The afternoon was consumed in ceremony; for the Commissioner of Uganda had to be sworn in the rank of Governor, to which he has been lately raised; and there was a parade of troops, in which some five or six hundred very smart-looking soldiers took part, headed by the Kampala company of Sikhs. It was not until the shadows began to lengthen that we visited the Kabaka on the Royal Hill. He received us in his Parliament House. In this large and beautifully-constructed grass building about seventy chiefs and Baganda notables were assembled. The little Kabaka sat on his throne, and his subjects grouped themselves around and before him. We were given seats at his side, and the Prime Minister explained that the Baganda would show us the ceremony of swearing a chief. One of the most portly and dignified of the councillors thereupon advanced into the centre of the room, threw himself face downward on the ground, and poured out a torrent of asseverations of loyalty. After a few minutes he rose and began brandishing his spears, chaunting his oath all the while, until he had created an extraordinary appearance of passion. Finally he rushed from the building to go and slay the King's enemies outside. It was not until he returned a moment later, calm, sedate, and respectable, that I realized, from the merry smile on his face and from the mirth of the company, that he was "only pretending," and that the ceremony was merely a representation given to interest us.
On the Way To Kampala.
Road Between Jinja and Lake Chioga.
The incident is remarkable because it illustrates the rapidity with which the Baganda people are leaving their past behind them. Already they laugh at their old selves. Ceremonies which twenty years ago had a solemn and awful significance, are to-day reproduced by this reflective people in much the same spirit as the citizens of Coventry revive the progress of Lady Godiva. The same thing happened at the war-dance the next day. Two or three thousand men, naked and painted for war, rushed frantically to and fro to the beating of drums and barbaric music, with every sign of earnestness and even frenzy. Yet a few minutes later they were laughing sheepishly at one another, and bowing to us like actors before the curtain, and the Prime Minister was making a speech to explain that this was meant to be a pageant of the bad old times reproduced for our benefit. Indeed, so unaccustomed to carry arms had the warriors become that not one in ten could find a spear to arm himself with, and they had to come with sticks and other stage-properties.
Even a comic element was provided in the shape of a warrior painted all over in a ridiculous manner, and held by two others with a rope tied round his middle. This, we were told, was "the bravest man in the army," who had to be restrained lest he should rush into battle too soon. It is not easy to convey the air of honest fun and good humour which pervaded these curious performances, or to measure the intellectual progress which the attitude of the Baganda towards them implied.