202 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

shield is a soldier, and the rapidity with which an army can be collected is astonishing. When the king and council have decided on a campaign, the great war-drum is beaten, and the following morning vast crowds of warriors assemble outside the palace attired as if for battle, their ordinary clothes being laid aside, and only a loin cloth being worn, their faces whitened with ashes to give them a ghastly appearance and strike terror into the hearts of the enemy. The king stands outside the palace gate holding a shield and two copper spears, which may be carried only by the king and the principal chiefs. Bound him are his nobles, similarly armed. Every body of warriors as it approaches, dancing and yelling, conies up to the king, and, going through the motions of attacking, vows fidelity to Mtesa and [vengeance on his enemies ; then they retire to the side, and a vast crowd gradually forms round the monarch, a lane being kept clear in the middle, up which fresh groups of warriors come to perform the ceremony of swearing fidelity. Meantime, the great drums of the palace boom out the war signal, which can be heard for miles around. When the greater number of the warriors in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace have collected, the king calls out the chiefs who are to have command of the forces, and gives them their commissions, and afterwards the vast assembly disperses. The commanders then send for the various batongoli