UGANDA JOURNAL.


He had also at his disposal Maxim Guns (the little guns that said "Ha Ha") as well
as Hotchkiss Guns. But of course in case of real trouble he and his handful
of troops could have been scuppered in no time, and even if he had lived to
tell the tale his official career would have been at an end, because a consider-
able military expedition, at great cost to the British tax-payer, would have been
necessary to retrieve the situation.('4)
 For this reason Sanders had not only to employ his soldiers judiciously but
also to use all possible means of anticipating trouble.
 One thing that was of great assistance to him was rapidity of movement.
He had two gun-boats at his disposal, the Zaire and the Wiggle, both running
on wood fuel.('5)
 Though navigation of the river was treacherous (night sailing could only
be resorted to in an emergency) and the keeping up of the fuel supply needed
constant attention, Sanders or one of his subordinates could usually be at the
scene of possible or actual trouble in a comparatively short time.
 Equally important was the Commissioner's method of diagnosing in advance
 the symptoms of unrest. This was through an extensive system of espionage. Up and
 down the river he had his spies, who seldom let him down. Sometimes they
 were local natives; more often Kano men like the Houssas. They maintained
 communications with headquarters by means of carrier pigeons. This system
 worked satisfactorily, except that sometimes the pigeon might be taken by a hawk,
 and that on one occasion an undesirable European, assisted by a native woman, who
 was a bird charmer, intercepted the pigeons and altered the messages. Use was
 also made of the lokali, i.e. the native drum-telegraph, and occasionally of helio.
 Sanders may be claimed as an exponent of indirect rule, in the sense that
he relied on his chiefs so long as they continued in the straight and narrow path,
and endeavoured to educate them up to a sense of their responsibilities. Many of
them served him loyally, and showed sufficient strength of character to keep
their people in order, to repress at once the old, who wanted to revive the customs
of the good old days, and the young, who wanted to gain kudos in the eyes of
the women folk by blooding their spears on all and sundry.
 Sanders would have been nowhere without the support of such loyal chiefs.
 In particular he would have been nowhere without Bosambo, the escaped
 Liberian convict, who by a series of judicious, though unprovable, murders, had
 made himself chief of the Ochori. Bosambo's headquarters occupied a strategic
 position at the head of the river on the frontiers of the "Old King's" territories,
 and he was thus able not only to guard those frontiers but also to attack the Isisi
 or Akasava in the rear if they seemed disposed to rebel.
 Though he accumulated fabulous wealth by oppression of his own people,
 and by petty thieving and general dishonesty, Bosambo remained absolutely
 faithful to Sanders and the British Empire in all major issues. On at least a dozen

 (14) On one occasion he was urgently requested to postpone an inevitable native
 war until "after the end of the present financial year"!
 (i5) The Wiggle was later converted to petrol.