The Masque of Africa_ Glimpses of African Belief - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,12

places which then become instinct with the spirit of the god. And there is something like this in the Baganda idea of shrines. The tombs of the Kabakas are obvious shrines. But there are others, and they are all over Buganda—waterfalls, say, or unusual rocks—and even to the visitor who doesn’t have the Baganda idea of sanctity, doesn’t know how to conduct himself in such places, and cannot respond to the complicated tribal stories, they are at once like a celebration of the natural world and a claim on that world.

The most spectacular of these natural shrines is the Sezibwa waterfall in Mukono district, less than thirty miles from Kampala. Prince Kassim told me later that Mukono was known for sacrifices. I believe he meant human sacrifices. But I didn’t know this when I went. It would have given another value to everything if I had known.

We left Kampala by the Jinja road, and as always it seemed that the mess of semi-urban development had destroyed the nature of the land and almost destroyed old systems of community. Near a “trading centre” we turned off the main road and drove for some time along a red dirt road: old Uganda again, the green bush acting as a screen, so that it is often a surprise what lies at the end of these unremarkable roads. There was a sign for the waterfall; and then in the middle of simple bush a high iron gate barred the red road.

Some young fellows were sitting about the road cutting above the gate, apparently idle. But one was our guide; an arrangement had been made with him on the telephone. He began to work right away. He slid down the cutting and said the site was of cultural value. That was promising, but he didn’t really have much English. In fact, he had pretty much shot his bolt with that sentence.

We heard the falls before we saw them: in the opening before us, a stream or river, coming from our left, falling over a rocky cliff, which was about a hundred feet high. Unexpected, this opening in the land, this flow of water, this violence. The water split into many channels as it slid down the rock and crashed into the river pool. Around the pool, away from the violent fall of water, was a grassy basin, lush from the spray. Everything here was very green. Much diminished now, but still brisk, the river continued out of the quieter end of the pool, running from left to right, and then winding away at the foot of a low hill until it was lost to view. On a clothes line in front of us, after the sublime falls, were men’s clothes hanging out to dry, perhaps the laundry of the guardians of the shrine. Above the disappearing stream, on the sunny hillside far to our right, were the conical thatched roofs of small huts, perhaps the quarters of the guardians.

The most sacred spot is at the very top of the falls. The spirit of the place dwells here, and there is a tribal story that tells you why. The water there washes away curses. You must be barefooted, though, to show respect for a holy place; and you must wash your face and hands nine times.

I had seen a greenish picket fence up there and had thought it was to prevent people getting too close to the falls.

It was easy to understand how people would have been moved by the beauty of the place. Its beauty would have always been known, and the idea of its sacredness must have come from far back, but the puzzling story was that the first person to visit the site and recognise its qualities was the Kabaka Mwanga, the successor of Mutesa I, who in 1886 ordered his Christian pages to be burnt.

Mwanga also planted a tree, which is still honoured, as did Mutesa II, who was sent into exile by Obote and died in London in 1969.

A footbridge led across the pool to a rocky slope. There was a stand of young eucalyptus trees on that slope. Our guide said they had been planted ten years before, but it was now accepted they were a mistake (perhaps because they were foreign), and there was a plan to have them replaced by purely local trees. The topmost line of eucalyptus had been hacked down with a machete, leaving small stumps. A slippery path zigzagged up the rocky slope, over the