the east africa protectorate is a country of the highest interest to the colonist, the traveller, or the sportsman. but the kingdom of uganda is a fairy tale. you climb up a railway instead of a beanstalk, and at the end there is a wonderful new world. the scenery is different, the vegetation is different, the climate is different, and, most of all, the people are different from anything elsewhere to be seen in the whole range of africa. instead of the breezy uplands we enter a tropical garden. in the place of naked, painted savages, clashing their spears and gibbering in chorus to their tribal chiefs, a complete and elaborate polity is presented. under a dynastic king, with a parliament, and a powerful feudal system, an amiable, clothed, polite, and intelligent race dwell together in an organized monarchy upon the rich domain between the victoria and albert 87 lakes. more than two hundred thousand natives are able to read and write. more than one hundred thousand have embraced the christian faith. there is a court, there are regents and ministers and nobles, there is a regular system of native law and tribunals; there is discipline, there is industry, there is culture, there is peace. in fact, i ask myself whether there is any other spot in the whole earth where the dreams and hopes of the negrophile, so often mocked by results and stubborn facts, have ever attained such a happy realization.
kisumu.
three separate influences, each of them powerful and benevolent, exercise control over the mass of the baganda nation. first, the imperial authority, secular, scientific, disinterested, irresistible; secondly, a native government and feudal aristocracy, corrected of their abuses, yet preserving their vitality; and thirdly, missionary enterprise on an almost unequalled scale. under the shelter of the british flag, safe from external menace or internal broil, the child-king grows to a temperate and instructed maturity. surrounded by his officers of state, he presides at the meetings of his council and parliament, 88 or worships in the huge thatched cathedral which has been reared on namirembe hill. fortified in their rights, but restrained from tyrannical excess, and guided by an outside power, his feudatories exercise their proper functions. the people, relieved from the severities and confusions of times not long ago, are apt to learn and willing to obey. and among them with patient energy toils a large body of devoted christian men of different nations, of different churches, but of a common charity, tending their spiritual needs, enlarging their social and moral conceptions, and advancing their education year by year.
an elegance of manners springing from a na?ve simplicity of character pervades all classes. an elaborate ritual of friendly salutations relieves the monotony of the wayfarer's journey. submission without servility or loss of self-respect is accorded to constituted authority. the natives evince an eagerness to acquire knowledge and a very high observant and imitative faculty. and then uganda is from end to end one beautiful garden, where the staple food of the people grows almost without labour, and where almost everything else can be grown better 89 and easier than anywhere else. the planter from the best islands in the west indies is astonished at the richness of the soil. cotton grows everywhere. rubber, fibre, hemp, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, tea, coca, vanilla, oranges, lemons, pineapples are natural or thrive on introduction. as for our english garden products, brought in contact with the surface of uganda they simply give one wild bound of efflorescence or fruition and break their hearts for joy. does it not sound a paradise on earth? approach and consider it more closely.
the good ship clement hill, named after a well-known african explorer, has carried us smoothly and prosperously across the northern corner of the victoria nyanza, and reaches the pier of entebbe as the afternoon draws towards its close. the first impression that strikes the eye of the visitor fresh from kavirondo is the spectacle of hundreds of natives all dressed in long clean white garments which they wear with dignity and ease. at the landing-place a sort of pavilion has been erected, and here come deputations from the chamber of commerce—a limited body of europeans—from the goanese community, and from the numerous indian colony of merchants. a tonga drawn by two 90 mules takes me to government house, and from a wide mosquito-proof veranda i am able to survey a truly delightful prospect. the most beautiful plants and trees grow in profusion on all sides. beyond a blaze of violet, purple, yellow, and crimson blossoms, and an expanse of level green lawns, the great blue lake lies in all its beauty. the hills and islands on the horizon are just beginning to flush to the sunset. the air is soft and cool. except that the picture actually looks more english in its character, one would imagine it was the riviera. it must be too good to be true.
it is too good to be true. one can hardly believe that such an attractive spot can be cursed with malignant attributes. yet what is true of the east africa protectorate is even more true of uganda. the contrast between appearance and reality is more striking and more harsh. behind its glittering mask entebbe wears a sinister aspect. these smiling islands which adorn and diversify the scenery of the lake supported a few years ago a large population. to-day they are desolate. every white man seems to feel a sense of undefinable oppression. a cut will not heal; a scratch 91 festers. in the third year of residence even a small wound becomes a running sore. one day a man feels perfectly well; the next, for no apparent cause, he is prostrate with malaria, and with malaria of a peculiarly persistent kind, turning often in the third or fourth attack to blackwater fever. in the small european community at entebbe there have been quite recently two suicides. whether, as i have suggested in east africa, it be the altitude, or the downward ray of the equatorial sun, or the insects, or some more subtle cause, there seems to be a solemn veto placed upon the white man's permanent residence in these beautiful abodes.
government house, entebbe.
there are many who advocate the abandonment of entebbe as the administrative capital and the restoration of the seat of government to kampala. but the expense of transferring public offices and buildings lately erected to another site is altogether beyond the slender resources and not among the most urgent needs of the uganda protectorate. great improvements have been effected recently in the sanitation of entebbe. the bush and trees, which added so greatly to its picturesque appearance, have been ruthlessly cut down; 92 and with them, mirabile dictu, have vanished the mosquito and the sleeping-sickness tsetse-fly. half a mile away on either side of the settlement are groves which it might easily be death to enter; but the inhabited area is now quite clear.
besides, the general unhealthiness of the country so far as the european is concerned is not local to entebbe. it is widely spread in slightly different degrees throughout the whole of uganda; and kampala is certainly not exempt. finally, there is a reason of a different character which ought to impose a final bar on any return of the imperial government to the native city. uganda is a native state. much of our success in dealing with its population arises from the fact that we work through and by the native government. and that government could not fail to lose much, if not all, of its separate and natural identity if it were overwhelmed by the immediate proximity of the supreme administration.
uganda
founded by permission of the war office on the map of africa no 1539.
stanford's geogr estabt. london.
view larger map.
for a new station in an almost unknown land, entebbe certainly presents many remarkable evidences of progress. the slopes of the lake shore are covered with pretty villas, each standing in its own luxuriant garden. there 93 is an excellent golf course, and a very bright and pleasant society. guardian over all this stands the sikh. there are two companies of these soldiers, one at entebbe and the other at kampala, who, being entirely immune to local influences of all kinds, constitute what mr. gladstone used to call the "motor muscle" of imperial authority. i have always admired the sikh in india, both in his cantonments and in the field. but somehow his graceful military figure and grave countenance under the turban as he stands erect beside his rifle on guard over british interests six thousand miles from the punjab, impresses the eye and the imagination with an added force. he is a picked volunteer from all the sikh regiments, who delights in uganda, thrives under its, to him, milder sun, lives on nothing, saves his doubled pay, and returns to india enriched and proud of his service across the sea. if at any time considerations of expense, or the desire to obtain a complete homogeneity in the military forces of the protectorate, should lead to the disbandment or withdrawal of these two companies, those who take the decision will have incurred a responsibility which few would care to share with them. 94
so far as human force is concerned, the british power in these regions is at present beyond challenge. no man can withstand it. but a new opponent has appeared and will not be denied. uganda is defended by its insects. it would even seem that the arrival of the white man and the increased movement and activity which his presence has engendered have awakened these formidable atoms to a realization of their powers of evil. the dreaded spirillum tick has begun to infest the roads like a tiny footpad, and scarcely any precautions avail with certainty against him. this tick is a dirty, drab-coloured creature the size and shape of a small squashed pea. when he bites an infected person he does not contract the spirillum fever himself, nor does he transmit it directly to other persons. by a peculiarly malevolent provision of nature this power is exercised not by him but by his descendants, who are numbered in hundreds. so the poison spreads in an incalculable progression. although this fever is not fatal, it is exceptionally painful in its course and distressing in its consequences. there are five or six separate and successive attacks of fever, in which the temperature of the victim 95 may rise even to 107 degrees; and afterwards the eyes and hearing are temporarily affected by a kind of facial paralysis. road after road has been declared infected by this scourge, and officer after officer struck down as he moves on duty from place to place. the only sure preventive seems to be the destruction of all old grass-huts and camping-grounds, and the erection along the roads of a regular system of stone-built, properly maintained and disinfected rest-houses, in which the traveller may take refuge from the lurking peril. and this will have to be done.
but a far more terrible shadow darkens the uganda protectorate. in july, 1901, a doctor of the church missionary society hospital at kampala noticed eight cases of a mysterious disease. six months later he reported that over two hundred natives had died of it in the island of buvuma, and that thousands appeared to be infected. the pestilence swiftly spread through all the districts of the lake shore, and the mortality was appalling. no one could tell where it had come from or what it was caused by. it resisted every kind of treatment and appeared to be universally fatal. scientific inquiries of various kinds were 96 immediately set on foot, but for a long time no results were obtained, and meanwhile the disease ran along the coasts and islands of the great lake like fire in a high wind. by the middle of 1902 the reported deaths from trypanosomiasis, or "sleeping sickness," as it has come to be called, numbered over thirty thousand. it was still spreading rapidly upon all sides, and no clue whatever to its treatment or prevention had been obtained. it seemed certain that the entire population of the districts affected was doomed.
on april 28th, 1903, colonel bruce, whose services had been obtained for the investigation of "sleeping sickness" through the instrumentality of the royal society, announced that he considered the disease to be due to a kind of trypanosome, conveyed from one person to another by the bite of a species of tsetse-fly called glossina palpalis. his theory was strongly supported by the fact that the disease appeared to be confined to the localities infested by the fly. the fly-belt also could be defined with precision, and was rarely found to extend more than a mile or two from water. the news that europeans could no longer consider themselves immune from the 97 infection caused, as might be imagined, much consternation in the white community. nearly everybody had been bitten by tsetses at one time or another, but whether by this particular species when actually infected, remained in suspense. moreover, tsetse-flies abounded in such numbers on all parts of the lake shore that their wholesale destruction seemed quite impossible. what then?
for a time colonel bruce's discovery almost paralyzed all preventive and restrictive measures. the scourge fell unchecked. by the end of 1903 the reported deaths numbered over ninety thousand, and the lake shores were becoming fast depopulated. whole villages were completely exterminated, and great tracts in usoga, which had formerly been famed for their high state of cultivation, relapsed into forests. the weakness of the victims and the terror or apathy of the survivors permitted a sudden increase in the number of leopards, and these fierce animals preyed with daring and impunity upon the living, the dying, and the dead.
further investigations, which were anxiously pushed on in many directions, revealed the existence of the tsetse-fly over widespread 98 areas. in the interior of usoga, on the banks of many rivers, in swamps on the shores of the albert lake and lake albert edward, these swarming emissaries of death were found to be awaiting their message. all that was needed to arm them with their fatal power was the arrival of some person infected with the microbe. the albert shores and several parts of the upper nile soon became new centres of pestilence. thousands of deaths occurred in unyoro. by the end of 1905 considerably more than two hundred thousand persons had perished in the plague-stricken regions, out of a population in those regions which could not have exceeded three hundred thousand.
any decrease in the mortality in any district up to the present time is due, not to any diminution in the virulence of the disease, but simply to the reduction of possible victims, owing to the extermination of the inhabitants. buvuma, a few years ago one of the most prosperous of all the islands, contains fewer than fourteen thousand out of thirty thousand. some of the islands in the sesse group have lost every soul, while in others a few moribund natives, crawling about in the last stages of 99 the disease, are all that are left to represent a once teeming population.
"it might have been expected," writes sir h. hesketh bell, the governor of uganda, to whom i am indebted for much valuable information on this subject, "that, even though the negroes showed inability to grasp the theory of the transmission of disease by the agency of insects, the undeniable deadliness of the countries bordering on the lake shore would have induced them to flee from the stricken land and to have sought in the healthier districts inland a refuge from the pestilence that was slaying them by thousands. an extraordinary fatalism, however, seems to have paralyzed the natives, and, while deploring the sadness of their fate, they appear to have accepted death almost with apathy."
the police of science, although arrived late on the scene of the tragedy, were now following many converging clues. therapeutic investigation into the treatment and origin of the disease, entomological examination of the resorts, habits, dangers, and life-history of the fly, and thirdly administrative measures of drastic authority are now being driven sternly forward. knowledge has accumulated. 100 fighting the sleeping sickness is like laying a vampire. to make the spell work, five separate conditions must be present—water, bushes, trees, the tsetse-fly (glossina palpalis), and one infected person. remove any one of these and the curse is lifted. but let them all be conjoined, and the sure destruction of every human being in the district is only a matter of time.
the government of uganda is now pursuing a policy based on the appreciation of these facts. wherever it is necessary to come to the lake shores, as at entebbe, munyonyo, ripon falls, fajao, etc., the tsetse-fly is banished or eliminated by cutting down the trees, clearing away the bush, and planting in its place the vigorous, rapid-growing citronella grass, which, once firmly established, holds its own against invading vegetation. wherever it is not possible to clear the shores of tsetse-flies, they must be cleared of inhabitants. and the extraordinary operation of moving entire populations from their old homes to new places—often against their will—has been actually accomplished within the last year by a combined dead-lift effort of these three tremendous forces of government which 101 regulate from such different points of view the lives and liberties of the baganda.
it does not follow that the lake shores will have to be abandoned for ever. in a very short time—some say two days, some eleven hours—the infected tsetse is free from poison and can no longer communicate it; and once the disease has been eradicated from the population, healthy people might return and be bitten with impunity. nor, on the other hand, can we hope, unless some cure capable of being applied on a large scale can be perfected, that the mortality in the immediate future will sensibly diminish. for there are many thousands of persons still affected, and for these segregation, nursing, and compassion comprise the present resources of civilization.
one thing is, however, above all things important. there must be no losing heart. at any moment the researches which are being conducted in so many laboratories, and in which professor koch has taken a leading part, may produce an absolute therapeutic remedy. by the administrative measures now vigorously enforced it is believed that the fatal contact between infected persons and 102 uninfected flies, between infected flies and uninfected persons, will have been effectively broken. we cannot fail to learn more of the tsetse. the humble black horse-fly, indistinguishable to the casual observer from harmless types, except that his wings are folded neatly like a pair of shut scissors, instead of splaying out on either side of his back, is now under a bright, searching, and pitiless eye. who are his enemies? what are his dangers? what conditions are essential to his existence? what conditions are fatal or inimical? international commissions discuss him round green tables, grave men peer patiently at him through microscopes, active officers scour central africa to plot him out on charts. a fine-spun net is being woven remorselessly around him. and may not man find allies in this strange implacable warfare? there are fishes which destroy mosquitoes, there are birds which prey upon flies, there are plants whose scent or presence is abhorrent or injurious to particular forms of insect life. in what places and for how long will the tsetse continue to fly, as he is wont, over the smooth, gleaming water, just above the reeds and bushes, just below the branches of the 103 overhanging trees? glossina palpalis contra mundum!
the governor with baganda group.
i have not sought to conceal the perils in describing the riches and the beauties of uganda. the harsh contrasts of the land, its noble potentialities, its hideous diseases, its fecundity alike of life and death, are capable of being illustrated by many more facts and examples than i can here set down. but what an obligation, what a sacred duty is imposed upon great britain to enter the lists in person and to shield this trustful, docile, intelligent baganda race from dangers which, whatever their cause, have synchronized with our arrival in their midst! and, meanwhile, let us be sure that order and science will conquer, and that in the end john bull will be really master in his curious garden of sunshine and deadly nightshade.
