230 THE PUBLIC EXECUTIONERS.
beads. There was no flour nor milk used in the country,
the natives living entirely upon plantain boiled,
or made into wine, which they called “ m’wengA”
There was very little drunkenness visible. Cattle
were rarely seen : the hills all round were such a mass
of tall reeds and grasses that they could not penetrate
them; even a dog would have had difficulty in hunting
through these thickets. Pleasant walks were cut
through them, and kept from being grown over by
the constant transit of slave parties. Katoonzee returned
from one of these during my stay at Uganda.
He had captured 130 women, chiefly old, and only fit
for weeding the fields. Some few, fitted for wives,
stood apart, to be given away to men thought deserving,
or whose services were to be rewarded. Each
woman of this class was worth three cows. An instance
occurred of the king having given a single
slave to one of his officers for some service performed,
and the man being bold enough to ask for another,
was cut to pieces with the usual- reed knife. His
limbs were carried away openly, while the trunk was
wrapped in a cloth. There were several executioners,
men of rank, who were the privy councillors of the
king. These men had numbers of followers, distinguished
by wearing their mark of office—a short
turban of cord—and sometimes carrying a peculiarly-
shaped bludgeon. Konzah has been mentioned; another,
named Oozoongoo, was always carried to court
in a litter, being an invalid. On meeting him, he
would stop to speak, and in expression had nothing
repulsive ; but when seen with a wreath of black
fringe encircling his head, hiding his eyes, and hanging
down to near his mouth, his appearance was comSTICK
PARADE.
pletely changed, and he reminded one of a bkck
Highland bull looking fiercely through his forelock.
Both these executioners were really polite men,
always frank when met at the palace—much more so
than the kamaraviona (commander-in-chief) who was
a proud, haughty young fellow. One day 1 ta d the
curiosity to follow a poor woman who was led by a
boy to be killed. She carried a small hoe, balanced
upon her head. No one told me she was under sentence
but the cord on the wrist was. sufficient; and
after travelling for half a mile, I followed her down to
the executioner’s gardens. Waiting outside for some
time, not a sound was heard, nor a person seen,
lazy yellow-beaked vulture, the cannibal of Uganda,
sat perched on the stump of a broken tre e; others
hovered high overhead, looking on the scene below
This circumstantial evidence was enough for me, and
I returned.
One of the sights at the capital of Uganda was to
watch the crowds of men on the highroad leading to
the palace ; all were under officers, perhaps a hundred
in one party. If wood is carried into the palace up
the hill, it must be done as neatly as a regiment performs
a manoeuvre on parade, and with the same
precision. After the logs are carried a certain distance,
the men charge up hill, with walking-sticks at the
“ slope ” to the sound of the drum, shouting and chorus-
smg; ’()n reaching their officer, they drop on their
knees to salute, by saying repeatedly in one voice the
word “ n’yans ” (thanks). Then they go back, charging
down hill, stooping simultaneously to pick up the
wood, till, step by s te p - it taking several h o u rs-th e
neatly-cut logs are regularly stacked m the palace