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
(379), 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 (137). "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."