_ Crossing the waters of the Victoria Nyanza we come to Uganda, a region which has been entertainingly described by Speke. One day, he tells us, he was crossing a swamp with the king and his wives:
"The bridge was broken, as a matter of course; and the
logs which composed it, lying concealed beneath the
water, were toed successively by the leading men, that
those who followed should not be tripped up by them.
This favor the King did for me, and I in return for the
women behind; they had never been favored in their
lives with such gallantry and therefore could not
refrain from laughing. He afterward helped the girls
over a brook. The king noticed it, but instead of
upbraiding me, passed it off as a joke, and running up
to the Kamraviona, gave him a poke in the ribs and
whispered what he had seen, as if it had been a secret.
'Woh, woh!' says the Kamraviona, 'what wonders will
happen next?'"
There is perhaps no part of Africa where such an act of gallantry would not have been laughed at as an absurd prank. In Eastern Central Africa
"when a woman meets any man on the path, the etiquette
is for her to go off the path, to kneel, and clasp
her hands to the 'lords of creation' as they pass.
Even if a female possesses male slaves of her own
she observes the custom when she meets them on the
public highway. A woman always kneels when she has
occasion to talk to a man" (Macdonald, I., 129).
"It is interesting to meet a couple returning from a journey for firewood," says the same writer. "The man goes first, carrying his gun, bow and arrows, while the woman carries the invariable bundle of firewood on her head." He used to amuse such parties by taking the wife's load and putting it on the husband, telling him, 'This is the custom in our country.' The wife has to do not only all the domestic but all the hard field work, and the only thing the lazy husband does in return is to mend her clothes. That constitutes her "rights;" neglect of it is a cause for divorce! Burton notes the absence of chivalrous ideas among the Somals (_F.F._, 122), adding that
"on first entering the nuptial hut, the bridegroom
draws forth his horsewhip and inflicts memorable
chastisement upon the fair person of his bride,
with the view of taming any lurking propensity to
shrewishness."
Among the natives of Massua, on the eighth of the month of Ashur, "boys are allowed," says Munzinger,
"to mercilessly whip any girl they may meet--a liberty
of which they make use in anything but a sentimental
way. As the girls naturally hide themselves in their
houses on this day, the boys disguise themselves as
beggars, or use some other ruse to get them out."
Adults sometimes take part in this gallant sport. But let us return to Uganda.
The Queen of Uganda offered Speke the choice between two of her daughters as a wife. The girls were brought and made to squat in front of him. They had never seen him.
"The elder, who was in the prime of youth and beauty,
very large of limb, dark in color, cried considerably;
whilst the younger one ... laughed as if she thought
the change in her destiny very good fun."
He had been advised that when the marriage came off he was to chain the girl two or three days, until she became used to him, else, from mere fright, she might run away.
A high official also bestowed on him a favor which throws light on the treatment of Uganda women. He had his women come in, made them strip to the waist, and asked Speke what he thought of them. He assured him he had paid him an unusual compliment, the Uganda men being very jealous of one another, so much so that anyone would be killed if found staring upon a woman, even in the highways. Speke asked him what use he had for so many women, to which he replied,
"None whatever; the King gives them to us to keep up
our rank, sometimes as many as one hundred together,
and we either turn them into wives, or make servants of
them, as we please." _