# Uganda by Pen and Camera/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII
Some Results of Christianity
Now I will try to show, with the help of a few pictures, the difference Christianity has made to the people. Books written by others have told of what the European Administration has done and is doing; and I desire to give the British Government Officials full credit for the vast number of improvements they have introduced, or helped the chiefs and missionaries to introduce, into the country. No doubt the imposition of the hut tax and the gun tax has made the people work to a limited extent; but the fact must not be overlooked that the native Governments have always imposed a hut or ​Poll tax on the people, and the values of this and the one imposed by the Administration are not very widely different.
It does always strike people very forcibly that, whilst coming from within ten miles of Mombasa at the coast, right up to Uganda, the whole of the inhabitants of the country are savages in appearance and in most of their habits; yet, when one comes to Uganda, the people are found to be clothed and in their right minds. When Sir H. M. Stanley saw the photographs of the two Christian boys here presented, he exclaimed, ‘Do you know, this is exactly what I have always noticed throughout Africa. The Christian natives have not the hunted, fearful expression of countenance that the heathen have. The Christians have a brighter, more intelligent, and more solid expression.’ These boys have been brought up as Christians for several years, though the one at the right hand, as a child, was carried away from
Bark cloth: 1. Stripping off the bark. 2. Beating it out.
In the faces of our Christian women, too, may be seen a difference, and the illustration will show that even at the very earliest age their children are taught to go to God’s House, for this picture was taken just outside a church. The kindly disposition of the lads could be instanced in many ways, but one will serve to show that they would set an example to English children in some things. One of them served a master who owned a dog. When the dog was taken with distemper and lying near to death, the lad sat beside it and moistened its mouth with water every few minutes until it died. It is a rare thing ​to see a Christian lad in Uganda ill-treat a dumb animal.
Then, Christianity has made an enormous difference in the dress of the people. Sir H. M. Stanley, on his first visit, noticed the people better clothed than their neighbours. Their clothing was, for the most part, the bark of a tree, just as is worn by the man in the illustration, which shows him stripping off the bark of a common wild fig tree, full of rubber sap, for the purpose of making one of these cloths. When stripped off, the bark is taken into a hut, laid on a log of wood let into the ground for solidity, and then is hammered out with a ribbed wooden mallet, which spreads it until it becomes, almost like cloth, though more like leather in texture. This was the national dress, varied by sheep and goat skins, which the natives are very clever at tanning. But these dresses will not wash, and Christians consider that they should dress
A Christian wedding group, showing the dress of the day.
The Rev. and Mrs. Z. Kizito, a Christian chief and his wife.
​of her as many Christian Englishmen think of their wives. She sits at table with him for meals, and together they eat with knives and forks and European table utensils generally. This is the result of Christianity. Polygamy was, and is, common amongst the heathen and Mohammedans. A Christian is married in church to one wife. Undoubtedly it is a very hard matter for a man who has had half a dozen wives to give them all up but one when he is baptized; but it is a remarkable and wonderful testimony to the power of Christ’s Gospel that such men receive strength to do this; and that strength is made perfect in weakness has been often borne out during the progress of the Gospel in Uganda. Unmarried men are not looked on with much respect in Uganda, and one boy quite decided that St. Paul must have been a married man, for, he said, ‘Otherwise he could never have obtained a seat on any council of the Jews. At least,’ ​said the boy, ‘that is so in our country. A bachelor is never listened to, in fact, he is scarcely known, and could not, in any case, get a chieftainship, or occupy any position of influence in the country.’
The Rev. Bartolom Ayo Musoke, with his wife and family.
​For some time now, the sale of intoxicating drink has been entirely prohibited in all markets directly under the control of the Native Government. Under the Brussels Act, any trader found guilty of selling spirit or intoxicating drink to a native is liable to a heavy fine. It would not be at all a bad thing if the same rule were enforced with regard to Europeans and Indians. The Baganda have realised what an evil strong drink is to the country, and have tried to curtail the sale, though they cannot hope to stop its use.