Through Uganda to Mount Elgon . Africa and wonderful waysof the African. He has been intensely interestedin the canoes, the men and women, some of thelatter with babies hanging on to them as theypaddle and chant their way across the stream;and he has also been interested in the way themen jeopardised their lives in fighting for aplace in the canoes. How true these portersare to their charge ! And he begins withadmiration to study the faces of the men inhis canoe. He is encouraged in his study by a smilewhich greets him from the end of the boat;but that same smile quickens him into mentaland ph
Through Uganda to Mount Elgon . Africa and wonderful waysof the African. He has been intensely interestedin the canoes, the men and women, some of thelatter with babies hanging on to them as theypaddle and chant their way across the stream;and he has also been interested in the way themen jeopardised their lives in fighting for aplace in the canoes. How true these portersare to their charge ! And he begins withadmiration to study the faces of the men inhis canoe. He is encouraged in his study by a smilewhich greets him from the end of the boat;but that same smile quickens him into mentaland physical activity more eifectually than themyriad mosquitoes that have left their resting-places in the papyrus to claim blood-relationshipwith the new white man, for by a lightningprocess of deduction he concludes that sincethat smile belongs to the mule-boy then themule has been sent on alone to be pulled andmauled, and perhaps lamed, on the oppositebank by the men who do not understand it. He looks round and recognises men who. HOUSE BUILT ON THE RIVER MPOLOGOMA. Weird and Wonderful Houses 247 ought to be with their loads in other boats,and fails to recognise the men who so carefullydeposited loads that as far as possible alwaystravel with the European. The loads indeedare near, but will have to wait half an houron the bank-side before the porters told offto carry them arrive. The traveller soon realises, if he has notalready done so, the philosophy of the Baswa-hili Pole, pole ( Slowly, slowly ); and of theLuganda proverb, Akwata mpola atuka wala ( He who goes slowly reaches far ); and havingcomforted himself with the thought that hewill arrive some tiTne, he settles down—as wellas the mosquitoes will allow him^to pass thetime profitably. This at any rate was my experience; andhaving heard a rumour to the effect that thepeople lived in the papyrus, I got the rowersto take me out of the usual route to see thechief of these men and women of the river. The canoe was made to wi
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