ABSTRACT
ON the 24th Dec. I was to present the treaty. The chiefs had a very long council together first, and agreed to sign it; then there was a little delay, and the king broke up the baraza. I objected somewhat sharply to having come in vain, and they apologised, and fixed the baraza for the afternoon. I went at 3 P.M. with De Winton. I read the treaty through, sentence by sentence, putting it in simple English, and Dualla rendered it most admirably in Swahili-one or other of the chiefs repeating it in Kiganda. Much discussion and even uproar arose at times, but I insisted on reading it right through, and that discussion should then take place afterwards. " There were several questions askedall most shrewd and intelligent, for these people are
very clever. In the first place, they wished to sign on the proviso that these messengers confirm what I have said regarding the decision in Europe, that Uganda ' follows England'" (diary). There was no real necessity for this, except to reopen the whole matter, for the French Fathers had seen the Anglo-German Agreement, and Dr Stuhlmann, the German, corroborated it. I also feared that-as there were, I was told, three messengers, one from the king and one from each party —the representatives of the king and " French " party might not speak truly, since of course their faction was opposed to British influence. I doubted, moreover, whether at the coast such a question would have been fully explained to the envoys.
