On my first arrival at Masindi I had begged Kabba Rega to instruct his
people to clear away about fifty acres of grass around our station, and
to break up the ground for cultivation, as I wished my troops to sow and
reap their own corn, instead of living at the expense of the natives.
The system, both in Uganda and Unyoro, is bad and unjust.
Should visitors arrive, they are not allowed to purchase food from the
people, but they must be fed by the king's order at the cost of the
inhabitants. This generally results in their not being fed at all, as
the natives quit the neighbourhood.
I had suffered much from hunger in Unyoro, during my former visit, in
the reign of Kamrasi; therefore I wished to protect myself against
famine by a timely cultivation of the surrounding fertile land, which
was now covered with rank grass about nine feet high.
In a military point of view it was impolitic to sit down within a
station incircled by a dense grass covert, and although I had not the
most remote suspicion of hostility in this country, I preferred a
situation whence we could enjoy an extensive landscape.
The Albert N'yanza lay distant about twenty miles on the west, in the
deep basin which characterizes this extraordinary sheet of water.
Immense volumes of cloud rose in the early morning from the valley which
marked the course of the lake, as the evaporation from the great surface
of water condensed into mist, when it rose to the cooler atmosphere of
the plateau 1,500 feet above the level.
