CHAPTER VII

Royal Life

Kabarole, the capital of Toro, may be described as a city of hills. On the highest of these, commanding a panoramic view of the country north, south, and east of Ruwenzori, stands the palace of King Daudi Kasagama. The Uganda Protectorate differs from Nigeria and the other west coast districts, in that it possesses no old-established cities and towns. The custom of the Kings of each of the four independent Kingdoms of the Protectorate formerly was to remove the capital as each succeeded to the throne. This involved a constant exodus of the people, who cleared out bodily in order to be close to their King. Scarcely any traces can be found of the previous capitals, as the houses were constructed merely of reeds, poles and thatch, which offer no resistance to the destroying hand of time; occasionally a worn grinding-stone or a broken cooking-pot is met with among waving elephant grass that immediately assumed mastery of the ground on the removal of the people.

In 1891 Kasagama succeeded to the throne of Toro, which was then being plundered and ravaged by the Kabarega, the neighbouring and powerful King of Unyoro. For some years the whole district was distressed by the merciless tyranny of the raiders, and the people were obliged to flee to the shelter of the mountains. Now peace and order reign, the security and authority of the King and his counsellors have been established by the British Government, and the country sown on all hands with the seed of Christianity which has effected a complete reformation in the lives and condition of the people.

The King’s house is the only brick building at present in the country. It is two-storied, with walls two and a half feet thick. The staircase is roughly constructed of bricks and runs outside. On the ground floor are three rooms. The centre one, into which the front door opens, is the reception room. The walls and ceiling are gaily hung with bright printed calico strips of varied design and colouring, stitched together. Over these are large, coloured Bible pictures illustrating the life of Christ. On the floor are spread grass mats and leopards’ skins, which are the sign of royalty. An Indian rug is placed under a table and chair in one corner where His Majesty sits and receives his guests. The room is supplied with no other furniture. A waiting-room leads off from this, which is unfurnished, with the exception of a native divan made of reeds for important or sick attendants; the others lounge about on the fine, soft grass strewn on the floor.

Kasagama’s study is on the other side of the reception-room, and that is where he does most of his business and carries on his correspondence. Upon the rows of shelves fixed to the wall are to be seen small piles of documents and letters received from his chiefs in the outlying districts, who are just learning to write. The boxes at the end of the room contain all his treasured presents received from the Government officials, missionaries and friends in England. If you call in any afternoon about five o’clock and are a friend of His Majesty you would perhaps be allowed into this sanctum, and there might find him working away at his typewriter or dictating to his typist, who can run his fingers very rapidly over the keyboard. Kasagama is now hard at work writing a history of the country. To prevent any unauthentic references to the past he has two old men, well versed in ancient lore, to refer to.

[Illustration: KING DANDI KASAGAMA OF TORO AND HIS CHIEFS.

_Photo by D. V. F. Figueira, Mombasa._]

The Council Hall, in which Parliament assembles every Monday, is in an adjoining country, and this is a large reed structure decorated inside with coloured calicos like the reception room. The railed off partitions are intended for the King’s chair, and for the Queen Mother or Sister, either of whom is expected to attend each week. The Ministers of State are arranged in straight rows down the building, and the people involved in the various cases brought up for trial come and kneel in the wide aisle which leads up to the King’s seat.

I only attended once, as women are generally debarred the privilege, but the first thing that struck me was how very civilised is the House in Toro and much in advance of one’s own native land, for we were not put up in a third gallery behind wire caging to merely catch a glimpse of the Speaker’s head, but had seats given us next to the King! However, there was a sad need of an Opposition or Nationalists’ Bench, to add a little gusto and sensation to the proceedings. To make up for this at the conclusion of each case, the Royal band broke out into uproarious melodies, and the bandsmen accompanied their instruments with caricature Irish jigs.

A visit to the King must always include an inspection of his flower garden, of which he is very proud. It dates back to our arrival in Toro. As he used to drop in for afternoon tea, he would often find us armed with rake and spade, just ready to tackle the patch of weeds outside our house. It was a matter of surprise to the natives when they heard that the white ladies were “cultivating,” and a still greater wonder when they learned that they were not sowing food but flowers. Whatever was the use of flowers? However, Kasagama thought it must be the correct thing, so one day ventured to beg a few flower seeds to start a garden for himself, and then very hesitatingly and half apologetically he asked what was the exact use of flowers, as he wanted to have an answer ready to give to questioners. However, the beauty and fragrance of our English flowers have spoken to these people and awakened in their hearts a real admiration and love, so that outside many a Toro homestead now can be seen borders of carefully tended flowers; and often prettily-arranged bouquets will be brought by them as greetings or offerings. At Easter time one result of this is seen in the Church. On the Saturday each one is asked to bring in the decorations and to help arrange them. The first time this was done the chancel was simply banked with bouquets, wreaths, and bunches of wild or cultivated flowers; palm leaves and papyrus grass, fixed to the columns of reeded poles down the church, made continued arches right along each aisle, while the open window sills were festooned with wild clematis. Most of this was done entirely by the natives.

Court life in Toro has a very attractive home side to it. One can scarcely wish for a more touching picture than when, the affairs of State being over for the day, Damali, the young Queen, comes into the Royal Palace with the little Princess Ruzi (Ruth). The Queen first bows before her husband-King, and the tiny child follows her mother’s example, and in baby language greets His Majesty. Then Kasagama for a time lays aside his regal dignity and clasping the child in his arms fondles her and talks and romps like a big school-boy.

The old custom of the men and women feeding apart has disappeared in the King’s household, and every evening Kasagama and Damali dine together. The menu never varies from one year’s end to another. Each day the King has his own particular cut from the goat, namely, the chops and cutlets, and the Queen has a leg. They generally manage to finish their joints, besides the quantities of boiled plantains and various native vegetables served up with the meat.

Kasagama has recently developed distinct sporting inclinations, and although it cannot be said that he has made his name, certain it is he has made his mark at them. Tennis was the first pastime he indulged in. One court was enough to allure anyone! A space was thoroughly cleared of vegetation in the mission compound and beaten by foot in place of a roller; two posts were firmly planted in the ground, a rope stretched across and strips of banana pith knotted on to it, hanging down like kippers put out to dry. The King was rather too powerful with his racquets; scouts had to be posted like fielders at cricket. Seeing the ball coming he made a desperate plunge toward it and either missed it altogether or slogged it as if intended for Ruwenzori’s snows. So he gave that up for football; the dimensions of the ball I suppose appealed to him as being more adapted to his size. He is now a great player; his grief is that he has never experienced the excitement of a scrimmage, as the men are afraid of hustling their King; the only member of the team who apparently does not mind doing so is Blasiyo, the pigmy! Another reason is that there is little chance of getting too close, as he is followed about the field by one attendant who holds an umbrella over his head and another man careers about with a chair, so that His Majesty can rest when the ball goes in an opposite direction of the field to where he happens to be.

In all Church work, Kasagama has been a leader and example to his people. Almost daily, at 8 a.m. as the people gather from all directions for Bible Classes or school teaching, a procession may be seen slowly issuing out from the reed enclosure that surrounds the royal palace. With a large company of retainers and an armed bodyguard at the front and rear, on his bay steed rides the King, a fine majestic figure, 28 years of age, and 6ft. 3in. in height. The Katikiro and other important Chiefs, with their attendants, if they have not already started, come out from their houses on their side of the King’s hill, and fall in behind His Majesty. They are bent on no Ministerial business, but if you were to ask the King, he would say “to learn wisdom from God, for how can I rightly rule my country without having first received that.”

When the drum beats for Sunday services, Kasagama is nearly always at his place in the church to join with his people in prayer and worship. Besides encouraging his young men and chiefs to offer themselves as missionaries to the neighbouring villages and districts, he helps in every possible way to supply the necessary means in order that the native organisations shall be supported by themselves. When the large reed Church showed signs of old age, Daudi Kasagama, like his namesake David, King of Israel, set his heart to “build a house unto the name of the Lord.”

Calling together his Christian Chiefs, he conferred with the Missionaries as to the quantities of material needed for a large Church, and when the approximate number of poles was given, he divided it up asking his Chiefs each to be responsible for a proportion.

The new “Temple” was not to be built of carefully-hewn stone, prepared bricks, or granite pillars, but of forest poles brought from long distances, many needing fifty men to carry them in; bamboos from the forest-clad heights of snow-peaked Ruwenzori; grass brought in by the women for thatching; reeds fetched from the swamps by men and children, and red mud for the walls. Every morning the King came down to work with his people in the erection of the building, and when the framework was completed, helped to bring in the grass which was cut up and beaten with the mud to form a kind of solid brick wall.

[Illustration: NEW CHURCH. KABAROLE TORO.]

At 8.0 a.m. the Katikiro, Chiefs and others made their way down to the mud pits, into which there was thrown red earth, straw and water. About twenty men then would jump in, clasp arms in a circle, yell a native air and stamp the mud with their bare feet till the right consistency was reached. By that time they had become splashed and disfigured into fearsome representations of painted Red Indians. The mud was then put into baskets and shouldered by a body of carriers, who marched single file to the scene where the building operations were being carried on, while a drummer always went on before to give a spirit of militarism to the work.

With shirt sleeves rolled up, Kasagama and an army of mud-layers were ready to receive the mud and slap it into the walls with a whoop and occasional mutual congratulatory exclamation “Wehale”—“well done.”

In this manner the Church, holding eight hundred people, was completed in six months free of debt and not having caused any expense to the Missionary Society!

When it is remembered that until the advent of Christianity six years previous, the King and Chiefs had never done one day’s manual work, one can only regard this Church as a standing testimony to the reality of a religion that can call forth such a spontaneous demonstration of the sincerity of its disciples.

One day while watching the unmistakable earnestness of the men at their toil, I turned to Kasagama and said: “King, your people are really enjoying their hard work.” He replied: “Oh no, my people have not yet arrived at liking work, but they are rejoicing because this is God’s house.”

Pending the arrival of the Bishop, an informal dedication service was arranged on the first Sunday of its completion. The Church was packed from end to end, the men on one side led by their King, the women on the other with the Queen Damali. A great stillness fell on that large congregation as King Daudi, who scarcely ever takes an active part in the services, rose and offered up a prayer of Consecration. In it he said: “O God, we know Thou dwellest not in temples made with hands, but this House has been built with our hearts’ devotion; therefore come down and take up Thy dwelling place, that sinners entering may be saved by Thy presence.”

Kasagama in his time has played several “parts.” Two days after the opening of the new Church, he was called upon to fill a position in a novel function for Toro, namely, the first European wedding. A great deal of excitement had prevailed for some time among the people, and whisperings of the unique event had filtered through to the villages, bringing a large number of people into the capital out of curiosity. It was a beautiful clear morning, and before sunrise the bride designate was needlessly reminded of the day by a loud shuffling and scurrying going on outside her calico window. The Katikiro’s loud baritone was heard commanding a regiment of workmen, and by way of creating an excitement in the proceedings, he accompanied his orders by eloquent aerial cracks with his whip of hippo hide.

In order to have a share in the festive preparations they had come down to strew fresh cut grass all round the house, in the courtyard and along the road to the church. On the preceding days, the chiefs’ wives, headed by the Queen, had been with their spades levelling the mud floor in the scarcely completed church and carpeting it with soft green grass. It was a welcome substitute of nature for the customary red felt drugget, and no one would have exchanged for canvas awning the archway of palm leaves and bushy papyrus grass heads that adorned the verandah and porch leading from the house.

All the Europeans in Toro were invited—they numbered five—and each had an allotted task. One performed the ceremony, another stood as best man, the organist pedalled away nobly at the portable baby organ and even persuaded it to produce the Wedding March creditably. There was one bridesmaid, and the fifth took the part of “guest.”

At 9.0 a.m. the church drums beat, and King Kasagama, dressed in a cloud of white and elaborate silk draperies, came down to act “father” to the bride. His Majesty looked almost pale with the responsibility of his new position, and scarcely trusted himself to speak as he took his “child’s” hand and led her from the house along the road lined with crowds of his excited people. The church presented a sea of black faces and white linen garments freshly washed for the occasion. Everyone was standing, for there was no room to sit down. A Lunyoro hymn was sung, and then the service proceeded in English till the close, when the faithful old native deacon Apolo offered prayer in the language of the people.

The usual carriages and greys had to be dispensed with as the livery stables were a little too far off! But a regulation reception took place and about seventy guests crowded into the very limited space of the European’s sitting room. A real iced cake specially imported, was mounted on a stool draped with trails of wild clematis. Heaped up dishes of thick sandwiches, stodgy jam tarts, cakes and biscuits, that suggested a Sunday School treat for at least some hundreds of hungry English bairns, proved a scarcely adequate supply for the visitors, who started on the cake, then tucked in sandwiches, jam tarts and sandwiches again, and so on, in a hopeless mix up. The tea was served round time after time, till the guests, out of sheer inability, had reluctantly to refuse further supplies. One chief, with a sigh, regretfully eyeing a dish of cake, exclaimed: “Okwongera nukwo kufa”—“Any more would be death.”

As the guests departed, timidly limped forward old Mpisi, the first dispensary patient. He had been silently waiting his opportunity to slip in and give the bride his little wedding gift of five cowrie shells: their value was one-third of a farthing, but they were all he possessed.

The honeymoon was spent “on the Continent”—the dark continent of Africa, a trip of about 700 miles, across lake and over land, visiting a continual succession of mission stations. It included a visit to the Government Capital of Entebbe, where an official repetition of the marriage service had to be performed. Fancy being married twice within one month!

As the happy pair rode off on mules, actually the customary rice followed them. A mob of natives enjoyed this part immensely; but some of the women ran up, and tearing the bracelets and necklaces from their own wrists and necks, gave them to the bride with sympathetic tears!

Even the slipper was not wanting; it was delivered to a native to throw at the couple as they turned off at cross-roads, but not quite seeing the point, and having a respectful regard for the shoe, he solemnly presented it as a parting greeting from the Europeans!