Each Mkungu is invested with a barony or county upon attaining this high rank, and with absolute authority over the people and their effects, upon condition of rendering service to his sovereign whenever required. The least dereliction of duty would entail a forfeiture of lands, and often of life. CHAPTER XV. Life and manners in Uganda—The Peasant—The Chief—The Emperor—The Land. To behold the full perfection of African manhood and beauty, one must visit the regions of Equatorial Africa, where one can view the people under the cool shade of plantains, and amid the luxuriant plenty which those lands produce. The European traveller, after noting the great length and wondrous greenness of the banana fronds, the vastness of their stalks and the bulk and number of the fruit, the fatness of the soil and its inexhaustible fertility, the perpetual springlike verdure of the vegetation, and the dazzling sunshine, comes to notice that the inhabitants are in fit accord with these scenes, and as perfect of their kind as the bursting-ripe mellow bananas hanging above their heads. Their very features seem to proclaim, “We live in a land of butter and wine and fulness, milk and honey, fat meads and valleys.” The vigour of the soil, which knows no Sabbath, appears to be infused into their veins. Their beaming lustrous eyes—restless and quick glancing—seem to have caught rays of the sun. Their bronze-coloured bodies, velvety smooth and unctuous with butter, their swelling sinews, the tuberose muscles of the flanks and arms, reveal the hot lusty life which animates them. Let me try to sketch one of these robust people, a Kopi or peasant of Uganda, at home. THE “KOPI” OR PEASANT. Were it not for one thing, it might be said that the peasant of Uganda realises the ideal happiness all men aspire after and would be glad to enjoy. To see him in the imagination, you must discard from your mind the inebriated, maudlin, filthy negro surrounded by fat wives and a family of abdominous brats. He may be indolent if you please, but not so indolent as to be unmindful of his own interests. For his gardens are thriving, his plants are budding, and his fields are covered with grain. His house has just been built and needs no repairs, and the fenced courts round it are all in good condition. Roll the curtain up and regard him and his surroundings! He steps forth from his hut, a dark-brown-coloured man in the prime and vigour of manhood, a cleanly, decent creature, dressed after the custom of his country in a clay-coloured robe of bark cloth, knotted at the shoulder and depending to his feet—apparently a contented, nay, an extremely happy man, for a streak of sunshine having caught his face, we have a better view of it and are assured it reflects a felicitous contentment.