Tea With a Dusky King

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 554, 5 January 1929, Page 22

Tea With a Dusky King

SIR PERCIVAL PHILLIPS, FAMOUS TRAVELLER AND CORRESPONDENT, TAKES TEA WITH THE KABAKA OF BUGANDA AND HIS CONSORT . . . BLACK RULER SAYS HE ENVIES SULTAN OF ZANZIBAR

A big yellow touring ear, flying a blue and yellow flag surmounted by tlie figure of a surprised lion, a shield and crossed spears, dashed through the gates and up the driveway. The two black servants setting out the tea things under the trees gave it one glance, and stiffened curiously. Their pose implied curiosity, awe, pride and tear. It was difficult to see the reason for their emotion (writes Sir Percival Phillips in the “Daily Mail”). In the back of the car was a diminutive, woolly-headed boy in a spotless cotton smock, his solemn face a mere smudge against the dying sun. In the front seat sat a plump little African lady in an afternoon frock and a determined hat, beside a driver of her own colour, who wore a linen coat. The driver jumped out briskly, handed the lady to the gravel path, and approached my host, who is an official in the Colonial service. He was a pleasant featured man, in the early thirties; hatless, like all the men of Uganda when the sun has passed four o’clock, and wearing new grey flannel trousers and brown shoes.

His face was kindly and intelligent, but Jhere was nothing to distinguish him in any way from hundreds of other negroes who are representative of the new missionary-trained generation of Buganda. The servants in the background knew differently. They watched him, round-eyed and motionless, as he shook hands with a cheerful smile, and the lady with him followed his example. “I am afraid we are a little late,” he said as he sac down with an appreciative glance at the trim flower beds. “I do hope we are going to hare some rain after all.”

Thus has civilisation transformed the Royal House of Bugunda. The quiet young man, chatting easily with his host, is the ruler of some 500,000 people and 24,000 square miles of territory, forming one of five provinces of the Uganda Protectorate. Ruler, that is, within certain reservations imposeil by his friend and

counsellor the British Government. The little woman with him, speaking bu' - few words of English and speaking them shyly, is his wife, known by courtesy to a European element of Kampala which pursues the theory of native sovereignty to excess as “Queen Irene.” The natives call her husband “The King,” but in the eyes of Britain he is the Kabaka. He is addressed thus in conversation, as you would address

i a duke. He represents an order of i things far removed from the dark days ]of his predecessor Mutesa, whose I tomb-house is the sacred shrine of j Buganda. In Mutesa's time State j criminals were executed by crocodiles | in the so-called “King’s lake,’’ a few ] miles distant, after their legs had i been publicly broken. The Kabaka [ is a convert to Christianity, like many | of his people, and he worships in the i new Protestant cathedral on one of j the seven hills of Kampala. I He maintains a good many of the | trappings of kingship. He has his | Court and his three principal Minisj ters, his Parliament House, and the I full etiquette handed down for genera- j j tions by the members of the Buganda 1 dynasty. He is the direct descendant! j of the superior Bahima or Hamitie j I stock that imposed themselves on the j inferior Bantu peoples long before the I j British came. | From the beginning of British in- ! fiuence in Uganda, the Kabaka’s ! j people have been friendly and respon- j | sive to the policy of steady progress | I and development. .. j The Kabaka himself realises that j some of his subjects want to run be- j fore they can walk. “They show a j tendency to progress too rapidly,” he j said to me. “They are too eager.” He is very progressive himself, but I at’ the same time he never forgets that j he is a Sovereign. He would like to | display more tangible evidence of his i position as the head of the largest! native State in this part of Africa. He j is wishful to Institute an Order like I that of the Sultan of Zanzibar. He { calls it the Order of the Shield and j Spear. The designs for the insignia of the five classes have been prepared, and there has been much correspondence back and forth with the Colonial Office.

The Kabaka is fond of sport. He plays tennis with Sir William Gowers, the Governor, at Government Hous.e. He is very keen on football, to which his people have taken with marked enthusiasm. He is well versed in English literature. He wrote a memorandum giving his views on the effect of any form of federation on Buganda, which is excellently phrased and very lucid. His Ministers are fond of composing State papers couched in the language of diplomacy. He would receive a salute of eleven guns if there were any guns. In effect, the Kabaka has not as great power as the Sultan of Zanzibar, or even some of the lesser Indian rajahs. 1-le is actually a paramount chief w‘ • authority onlj' over liis owu

people, and even this is limited by his treaty with Great Britain. Nevertheless his kingdom is a picturesque structure, sufficiently imposing in exterior, and to see him enthroned in his state robes of blue and gold brocade, and wearing his high crown, is to be convinced of his own earnestness in maintaining the traditions bequeathed to him by a long line of rulers who were real Kings of the Buganda people.