Ali Genninar had made a combined attack upon Kabba Rega, together with
Rionga and the Langgo tribe, and had utterly defeated him. His people
were now deserting him in great numbers, and were flocking to the
winning side. Kabba Rega had taken to flight, and was supposed to be
hiding in the neighbourhood of Chibero, on the borders of the Albert
N'yanza.
M'tese, the king of Uganda, had invaded Unyoro from the south, and
having heard of Kabba Rega's treachery towards myself, he had sent an
army of 6,000 men under his general, Congow, to be placed at my
disposal.
This friendship was the result of my diplomacy in having sent him
valuable presents from Masindi, together with a letter warning him
against Kabba Rega, who wished to prevent the goods of the north from
reaching Uganda, in order that he might monopolize the trade in Unyoro.
The subsequent conduct of Kabba Rega had proved this accusation, and
M'tese had heard with rage and dismay that I had been forced to burn all
the numerous goods, which otherwise would have passed to him in Uganda.
On the 25th December the fort of Fatiko was completed. This was
commenced on the 28th August; thus my men had been four months engaged
in the work, owing to the extreme hardness of the subsoil, which was a
compact gravel resembling concrete.
The three faces of the fort measured 455 yards of fosse and earthen
rampart. The fosse was eight feet wide, eight feet deep, and the face of
the rampart was protected by chevaux-de-frise of sharpened stakes. The
west base of the fort was the rock citadel, which commanded the
surrounding country. Upon this solid foundation I had built an excellent
powder-magazine and store, of solid masonry. This fire-proof building
was roofed with a thick cement of clay from the white-ant hills, that
had been tempered for some weeks and mixed with chopped straw.
All my work was completed, and I could do nothing until the
reinforcements should arrive from Gondokoro. The natives paid their
trifling corn-tax with great good humour, and they generally arrived in
crowds of several hundreds, singing and dancing, with large baskets of
tullaboon upon their heads, with which they filled our rows of
granaries.
The grass was fit to burn, and the bunting season had fairly commenced.
All the natives now devoted themselves to this important pursuit. The
chase supplies the great tribe of Shooli with clothing. Although the
women are perfectly naked, every man wears the skin of an antelope slung
across his shoulders, so arranged as to be tolerably decent. The number
of animals that are annually destroyed may be imagined from the amount
of the skin-clad population.
Although the wilderness between Unyoro and Fatiko is uninhabited, in
like manner with extensive tracts between Fabbo and Fatiko, every
portion of that apparently abandoned country is nominally possessed by
individual proprietors, who claim a right of game by inheritance.
This strictly conservative principle has existed from time immemorial,
and may perhaps suggest to those ultra-radicals who would introduce
communistic principles into England, that the supposed original equality
of human beings is a false datum for their problem. There is no such
thing as equality among human beings in their primitive state, any more
than there is equality among the waves of the sea, although they may
start from the same level of the calm.
In a state of savagedom, the same rules of superiority which advance
certain individuals above the general level in civilized societies will
be found to exert a natural influence. Those who become eminent will be
acknowledged by their inferiors. The man who is clever and wise in
council will be listened to: the warrior who leads with courage and
judgment will be followed in the battle; the hunter who excels in
tracking up the game will be sent to the front when the party are on the
blood-track. In this way superiority will be generally admitted.
Superiority of intellect will naturally tend to material advancement.
The man of sense will gather more than the fool. That which he gathers
becomes property, which must be acknowledged by society as an individual
right that must be protected by laws.
In tribes where government is weak, there is a difficulty in enforcing
laws, as the penalty exacted may be resisted; but even amidst those wild
tribes there is a force that exerts a certain moral influence among the
savage as among the civilized: that force is public opinion.
Thus, a breach of the game-laws would be regarded by the public as a
disgrace to the guilty individual, precisely as an act of poaching would
damage the character of a civilized person.
The rights of game are among the first rudiments of property. Man in a
primitive state is a hunter, depending for his clothing upon the skins
of wild animals, and upon their flesh for his subsistence; therefore the
beast that he kills upon the desert must be his property; and in a
public hunt, should he be the first to wound a wild animal, he will have
gained an increased interest or share in the flesh by having reduced the
chance of its escape. Thus public opinion, which we must regard as the
foundation of EQUITY, rewards him with a distinct and special right,
which, becomes LAW.
It is impossible to trace the origin of game-laws in Central Africa, but
it is nevertheless interesting to find that such rights are generally
acknowledged, and that large tracts of uninhabited country are possessed
by individuals which are simply manorial. These rights are inherited,
descending from father to the eldest son.
