ROADSIDE COURTESIES IN EAST AFRICA.

Evening Star, Issue 13091, 26 October 1908, Page 1

ROADSIDE COURTESIES IN EAST AFRICA.

The manners of the Baganda are cere*, monious to a degree. They.well deserve Sir Harry Johnston’s description of them as “the Japanese of Africa.” If yon say “Good morning" to a stranger on an English road, it is as like.as not thathis surprise will throw him into a posture of self-defence; but when two Baganda meet they begin to salute each other as soon as they come within earshot. " How are yon?” cries the one. “Who am I that you should car©'to know?” replies the other. “ Humble though I be, yet I have dared,” rejoins the first. “But say first how are sTou,”5 T ou,” continues the se-l ooud. “ The better for the honor you have done me,” is the answer. By this they have already passed each other and there is only time for the Parthian affability, “ Ihe honor is mine and I shall treasure it,” and a quavering of delicately modulated, long-drawn “ A—a—e’s” of I contentment and good-will which gradually die away in the distance, leaving neither of them the worse circumstanced nor the .better informed. I must add, for the reader’s caution, that the aforesaid dialogue is not an invariable ritual. The phrases may be varied ad infinitum to suit the occasion; but it will 'suffice as an illustration of these roadside courtesies. —Winston Churchill, M.P., in the ‘Strand Magazine.’