Administration and Revenue.—The protectorate is adminis tered on Crown Colony lines. The governor is assisted by an executive and (since 1921) by a legislative council, on which are nominated unofficial members. At the head of each province is a commissioner. The native States have a large measure of home rule. Of these Buganda is the chief and relations with it were settled by treaty in 1900. The kabaka (king) is assisted by a ministry and by a lukiko or parliament. Similar arrangements have been made with the States of Bunyoro, Ankole and Toro, while in regions where no well-defined native State existed, ad ministrations under recognized chiefs have been built up wherever possible. Revenue is derived from poll taxes, customs duties, an export-cotton tax, trading licences and land rents. The chief item is the poll tax. Since 1915-16 the protectorate has been self supporting. The figures for 1926 were: revenue, £1,389,000; ex penditure, £1,295,000. In 1927 revenue dropped to £1,292,000 and expenditure was £1,430,000, the balance being made good from accumulated surpluses. With growing revenue the adminis tration devoted large sums to education, which up to 1925 had been mainly in the hands of missionaries, and to public health. For the education of the natives a system was developed from village school to public school.
The countries grouped under this protectorate were invaded at some relatively remote period—say, three to four thousand years ago—by Hamitic races from the north-east, who mingled exten sively with the Nile negroes first, and then with the aboriginal inhabitants of Buganda, Bunyoro and Nandi. These Hamites brought with them a measure of Egyptian civilization, cattle and the arts of metallurgy, pottery and other adjuncts to neolithic civilization. There was probably no direct intercourse with Egypt by way of the Nile, owing to the lake-like marshes between Bor and Fashoda, but instead an overland traffic with Ethiopia (the land of Punt) via Mt. Elgon and the Rudolf regions. In time even this intercourse with the non-negro world died away, and powerful kingdoms with an aristocracy of Galla descent grew up in Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga and Ankole.
The kingdom of Buganda especially dominated the lands of Victoria Nyanza in the 19th century. King Suna of Buganda first heard of the outer world of white men in 185o from a runaway Baluch soldier of Zanzibar. Speke in 1862 reached Buganda, the first of all Europeans to enter that country. In the early 'seventies Sir Samuel Baker extended the rule of the Egyptian Sudan as far south as the Victoria Nile. General Gordon, who succeeded Baker, attempted through Colonel Charles Chaille Long, in 1874, not only to annex Bunyoro but also Buganda to the Egyptian dominions. But owing to the indirect influence of the British government, exercised through Sir John Kirk at Zanzibar, the Egyptian dominions were prevented from coming south of the Victoria Nile.
entrusted to Linant de Bellefonds, a Frenchman in the Egyptian service, who had been sent to Buganda by Gordon. On his return. Bellefonds was murdered by the Bari. When his body was re covered Stanley's letter was found concealed in one of his boots and was forwarded to England.
Meanwhile the Zanzibar Arabs had reached Buganda in ever increasing numbers as traders ; but many of them were earnest propagandists of Islam, and strove hard (with some success) to convert to that religion the king and chiefs of Buganda and adjoining countries. In 1877 the Rev. C. T. Wilson, one of a party of missionaries sent in answer to Stanley's appeal, arrived in Uganda, and towards the end of 1878 was joined by Alexander Mackay. In 1879 another party arrived by the Nile route. In the same year the French Roman Catholic mission of the White Fathers of Algeria was inaugurated, and thus from 1879 dates the triangular rivalry of the creeds of Anglican and Roman Chris tianity and of Islam.
In 1882 Islam gained an ascendancy, and the French withdrew for a time. In the autumn of 1884 Mutesa died. A great change had been wrought in Uganda during the latter years of his reign. Calico, fire-arms and swords had replaced the primitive bark-cloth and spear, while under the teaching of the missionary-engineer Mackay the native artisans had learnt to repair arms and use European tools. Mutesa was a clever man of restless energy, but regardless of human life and suffering, and consumed by vanity. He was succeeded by his son Mwanga, a cruel, weak and vicious youth then about 18. The intrigues of the Arabs led him to suspect the designs of the missionaries. He became alarmed at their in fluence over numbers of his people and resolved to stamp out Christianity. The identification of the missionaries with political embassies and their letters of introduction from secular authori ties, added to Mwanga's fears and early in 1885 he determined to crush Christians and Muslims alike. Mackay and the Rev. R. P. Ashe were seized and their followers persecuted. Then in the au tumn of that year Bishop Hannington, unwisely, approached Buganda by Busoga, i.e., from the east—the route by which native tradition held that the conquerors of Buganda would come. By Mwanga's orders Hannington was murdered (Oct. 1885). In May 1886 there began a renewed and more terrible persecution of Christians. Converts were butchered wholesale ; on one oc casion 32 were burnt at the stake together. The Baganda Chris tians showed great heroism and the persecution but increased the number of converts. In 1888 a scheme of Mwanga's to entice all the Christian and Muslim converts on to an island in the lake and leave them there to starve miscarried. Mwanga then fled and after a time made his way to a French mission station at the south end of Victoria Nyanza. In his absence his eldest brother Kikewa was made king and the principal offices were divided among the three parties—the Ba-Ingleza ("English" Protestants), the Ba-Fransa ("French" Roman Catholics) and the Ba-Islamu (Muslims). But the Muslims, under Arab instigation, treacher ously attacked and murdered many of the Christian chiefs and the Christians fled to Ankole. For a time the Arabs were in the ascendant and as Kikewa refused to be circumcised he was de throned. His brother Karema was made king and large numbers of the peasantry were forced to submit to the hated circumcision.