L Jinja. J
number, trotted by. The women numbered
about 5000, but not more than 500 can be
styled the Emperor’s concubines; the others were
for the duties o f the household.
I f beautiful women o f sable complexion are to
be found in Africa, it must, I thought, be in
the household o f such a powerful despot as
Mtesa, who has the pick o f the flower o f so
many lands. Accordingly I looked sharply
amongst the concubines, that I might become
acquainted with the s ty le o f pure African
beauty.^ Nor was I quite disappointed, though
I had imagined that his wives would have all
been o f superior personal charms. But Mtesa
apparently differs widely from Europeans in his
tastes. There were not more than twenty out
o f all the five hundred worthy o f a glance of
admiration from a white man with any eye for
s tyle and beau ty, and certainly not more than
three deserving o f many glances. These three,
the most comely among the twenty beauties of
Mtesa s court, were o f the Wahuma race, no
doubt from Ankori. T h e y had the complexion
o f quadroons, were straight-nosed and thin-lipped,
with large lustrous eyes. In the other graces
o f a beautiful form they excelled, and Hafiz
might have said with poetic rapture that they
were “ straight as palm-trees and beautiful as
moons.” T h e only drawback was their hair—
the short crisp hair o f the negro race— but in
all other points they might be exhibited as the
perfection o f beauty which Central Africa can
p r o d u c e . Mtesa, however, does not believe them
to be superior, or even equal, to his well-fleshed,
u n c tu o u s -b o d ie d , flat-nosed wives: indeed, when
I pointed them out to him one d ay at a private
audience, he even regarded them with a sneer.
Speke, if I remember rightly, declares that fatness
in womankind is synonymous with beauty
in Uganda. This may once have been the case,
but it is certainly not so now, for in few women
regarded with favour b y Mtesa or his chiefs
have I seen any gross corpulence o f body.
Naturally, where there is abundance o f good
digestible food, and the climate is agreeable,
humanity o f the respectable class will genera y
be found to be well-clothed in flesh, be it in
Uganda or in England, but it is somewhat unreasonable
to state that the respectable class
therefore considers superfluous rotundity to be
an element o f beauty.
After the royal harem followed Mtesa s uncle,
ancient and well-featured Sabaganzi, whom, as
regards the multitude o f women th^t followed
him, I looked upon for a long time as a v e ry
Solomon among the Waganda, until one day
learned that large possessions o f womankind mean
wealth in Uganda, for all of them have a market
value, and are saleable for wares of any kind,
be they cloth, cows, beads, or guns. Still I can