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December 3, 2012

	Uganda and Its Peoples; Notes on the Protectorate of Uganda, Especially the Anthropology and Ethnology of Its Indigenous Races Uganda and Its Peoples is a detailed survey of the native peoples of the Uganda Protectorate, as understood by early 20th-century ethnography and anthropology. The book is organized in nine chapters, each of which is devoted to one of the main ethnic and tribal groups: Bahima, Banyoro, Batoro, Banabuddu, Sese Islanders, Bakoki, Basoga, Bavuma, and Baganda. Topics covered include marriage ceremonies, birth ceremonies, diet, death ceremonies, beliefs and superstitions, history, law, systems of weights and measures, folklore, customs and traditions, and economic activities. Included are portraits of the kings of the different tribes and more than 200 other photographs depicting noteworthy places, people from different walks of life, and images of people in the major ethnic groups. A map shows the localities inhabited by the peoples discussed in the book, from the northern border with Sudan at approximately 5° north to the southern border with German East Africa. The author, James Frederick Cunningham, previously had assisted British explorer and colonial official Sir Henry Hamilton (Harry) Johnston (1858–1927) with the preparation of his monumental The Uganda Protectorate, published in 1902, and Cunningham’s book includes an appreciative preface by Johnston.
	Uganda’s Katikiro in England Uganda’s Katikiro in England is the official account of the visit of the katikiro (prime minister) of Buganda, Apolo Kagwa (circa 1864–1927), in 1902 to participate in the coronation of King Edward VII, who ascended to the British throne following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, in early 1901. The grandson of a Ugandan chief, Apolo served as a page in the court of King Mutesa I of Buganda (reigned, 1856–84) and became a Christian at a young age. He rose to become chief storekeeper and later prime minister to King Mwanga II (ruled 1884–88 and 1889–97), the son and successor of Mutesa I. Written in Luganda by Ham Mukasa, secretary to Apolo, and translated by the Reverend Ernest Millar, an English missionary who served as the katikiro’s interpreter during his visit, the book recounts the trip overland from Kampala to Mombasa, Kenya, the voyage by ship through the Red Sea and Suez Canal to Naples, and the rail journey across Europe to Britain. Mukasa describes Apolo’s meetings in London with the explorer Henry M. Stanley, the bishop of London, various military and naval officers, and other influential individuals; his visits to Southampton, Birmingham, Cambridge, Glasgow, Sheffield, and other British cities; and his participation in the coronation itself. The book concludes with an account of the return voyage across Europe, with a stop in Rome, the passage to Mombasa on a German steamer, and the party’s arrival in Kampala. The book is an unusual and valuable portrait of British and European society as seen through the eyes of an influential African during the colonial period.
	The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda Told for Boys The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda Told for Boys is a biography of Alexander Murdoch Mackay (1849–90), a pioneering Scottish missionary to Uganda. Written by Mackay’s sister, Alexina Mackay Harrison, and published in London in 1892, the book was intended to inspire boys to follow Mackay’s example and devote their lives to service in Africa. It begins with a brief account of the early European explorers of Africa: Mungo Park, who in 1796 ventured up the River Niger; James Bruce, who in 1770 traced the Blue Nile to its source; and other explorers, including Speke, Grant, Stanley, and Livingstone. An account of Mackay’s early life in Scotland follows, reporting the influence on him of a deeply religious and highly literate family, and his early commitment to preaching the Christian gospel. It recounts Mackay’s studies in engineering at the University of Berlin, his learning German, and the close ties he developed with German church and missionary circles. In 1876, Mackay answered a call of the Church Missionary Society to serve in Uganda. He arrived in Africa in November 1878, where he spent nearly 14 years, never once returning to his native Scotland. The book describes Mackay’s friendship with King Mutesa I of Buganda (reigned, 1856–84) and his difficulties under Mutesa’s successor, King Mwanga, who fiercely persecuted the early Ugandan church. The concluding chapter recounts the work of Alfred R. Tucker, Anglican bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa in 1890–99 and first bishop of Uganda in 1899–1911, and of six early Ugandan Christians who continued Mackay’s work after his death: Sembera Mackay, Henry Wright Duta, Mika Sematimba, Paulo Bakunga, Zachariah Kizito, and Yohann Mwira.
	Growls from Uganda Growls from Uganda is a book of reflections on various aspects of modern life written by an unidentified Englishman living in Uganda in the early part of the 20th century. The author’s pseudonym, Critolaos, is taken from a relatively obscure ancient Greek philosopher who was a member of the school of Skeptics. The first chapter, entitled “Civilisation from a Distance,” describes the experience of the author living in a Baganda grass hut, built to his own specification and fashion. Successive chapters deal with what the author sees, from his detached perspective as a recluse in Africa, as the evils of modern European and American civilization: advertising, commercialism, excessive desire for money, a flawed educational system, and accidents involving motor cars. The concluding chapter recounts the author’s earlier life as a gold prospector in British Columbia, Canada, with reflections on the possibilities of “striking it rich” and the injustices that often befall prospectors. Little is known about the true identity of the author, why he went to Uganda, or how long he remained, although one scholar states that his real name was H.B. Cater, the author of a 1905 book on unemployment published under the same pseudonym.
	Tucker of Uganda: Artist and Apostle, 1849-1914 Tucker of Uganda: Artist and Apostle, 1849-1914 is a biography of Alfred R. Tucker, the first bishop of Uganda. The book traces Tucker’s early life in England, his training and success as an artist, his studies at Oxford, his work as an Anglican clergyman, and his call to go to Africa as a missionary. Consecrated bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa by the Archbishop of Canterbury on April 25, 1890, Tucker left for Africa the same day. He made a survey trip of the Uganda Protectorate in late 1890–early 1891, where he found the country in parlous condition, wracked by conflict between Christian missionaries and Arab traders, rivalries between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and difficult economic conditions. Over the next seven years, Tucker made two long visits to Uganda from his base in Mombasa, Kenya. He was instrumental in building up the Anglican Church, but he also witnessed devastating famine and outbreaks of fever. In 1897, Tucker became the first bishop of the newly formed Uganda diocese. In 1899, he transferred to Mengo, near present-day Kampala, where he served until 1911. As bishop, he worked to build an autonomous Ugandan church with its own leaders, and he established schools and emphasized the importance of education. He served his final years as canon of Durham Cathedral in northern England, where he died in 1914.
	Planting in Uganda. Coffee—Para Rubber—Cocoa Planting in Uganda. Coffee—Para Rubber—Cocoa is a comprehensive analysis of plantation agriculture in early 20th-century Uganda, written by two senior managers of Ugandan companies. As stated in the preface, it was intended to assist white planters who were attracted to Uganda by the fertile soils and favorable climate but who, in many cases, had no knowledge of agricultural conditions in the country. It deals with three main products—coffee, Para rubber (today usually simply referred to as rubber), and cocoa—and focuses on two provinces, Buganda and Bugosa, where plantation agriculture was most extensively developed. Chapters are devoted to the physical features of the country; the history of products in Uganda; yields and results; the probable life of trees and how to prolong it; choice of land for plantations; nurseries; laying out a plantation; clearing and planting; weeds and weeding; factories and machinery; collection and preparation of coffee; collection and preparation of Para rubber; collection and preparation of cocoa; estate management; costs of establishing plantations and of preparing products; insect pests; and fungoid diseases. Tables provide a wealth of information on rainfall, yields, prices, and the recommended number of trees to be planted per acre and the distances between trees. Illustrations depict the coffee, Para rubber, and cocoa plants, common weeds, and methods for tapping rubber.
	Who is the Murderer? Panchkori Dey (also seen as Babu Panch Kori Dey, 1873–1945) was a Bengali writer of detective fiction, best known for two of his characters: Arindam Bosu, a dhoti-wearing detective working in India and Europe, and Jumelia, a cunning and wicked criminal. Dey was influenced by 19th-century European writers of criminal romances, such as Wilkie Collins and Emile Gaboriau. Hatyakari Ke? (Who is the murderer?) was first published in Bengali in about 1903; the edition presented here is a later Urdu translation. The plot revolves around a father who arranges his daughter’s marriage to a characterless boy out of greed, in defiance of the wishes of his family and friends. The social evil of arranged marriages, particularly the suffering of the girls involved, is a theme of the novel.
	Jerusalem Delivered La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem delivered) is a verse epic by the late-Renaissance Italian poet Torquato Tasso (1544–95). Written in the eight-line stanzas common to Italian Renaissance poetry, Tasso’s masterpiece is known for the beauty of its language, profound expressions of emotion, and concern for historical accuracy. The subject of the poem is the First Crusade of 1096–99 and the quest by the Frankish knight Godfrey of Bouillon to liberate the sepulcher of Jesus Christ. Tasso was born in Sorrento, in the Kingdom of Naples, and his interest in the Crusades probably was kindled by the sacking of Sorrento in 1558 by the Turkish Ottomans and the ongoing struggle between Muslim and Christian powers for control of the Mediterranean. He completed the work in 1575 but spent several years revising the text before it was published in 1581. Tasso’s reputation as a poet and man of genius was well established in 17th-century Italy and throughout Europe by the 18th century. This monumental, two-volume edition of his most important work was completed in 1745 by the Venetian publisher and journalist Giovanni Battista Albrizzi (1698–1777), a member of a family active in the Venice book trade for some 150 years. The illustrations are by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (also called Giambatista Piazzetta; 1682–1754), a Venetian-born painter who was the first president of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. The frontispiece is printed in red and black with a copperplate engraving of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (1717–80), to whom the work is dedicated.
	Geography Claudius Ptolemaeus (circa 100–circa 170), known as Ptolemy, was an astronomer, mathematician, and geographer of Greek descent who lived and worked in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. In his Geography, Ptolemy gathered all the geographic knowledge possessed by the Greco-Roman world. He used a system of grid lines to plot the latitude and longitude of some 8,000 places on a map that encompassed the known world at the height of the Roman Empire. Ptolemy’s work was lost to Europe in the Middle Ages, but around 1300 Byzantine scholars began introducing copies of his maps and writings into Italy. In 1406, the Italian Jacopo d’Angelo translated the original into Latin. The first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1477, followed a year later by the edition presented here, which contains some of the earliest and finest printed copper engravings. The engravings were begun in Rome by the German Konrad Sweynheym, who, with his partner Arnold Pannartz, founded the first Italian press at Subiaco in 1465. Sweynheym died in 1477, and the engravings and the publication were completed by Arnold Buckinck. The work contains 27 maps, each printed on two separate, facing leaves. Ptolemy’s Geography included major inaccuracies, attributable in part to his miscalculating the size of the Earth, which he believed was smaller than it is. One effect of this miscalculation was to cause Columbus to underestimate the time it would take to reach what he thought was Asia by sailing westward. European explorers gradually completed and corrected Ptolemy’s maps, but the ancient geographer’s methods remained important as a basis for modern cartographic practice.
	Dictionary of Urdu Terms Used in Newspapers Ziauddin Ahmad Barni (1890–1969) was born and educated in Delhi, where his father and one of his brothers were instrumental in the development of Urdu newspapers and several members of the family were renowned calligraphers. Proficient in Farsi and English, he worked in the Oriental Translator’s Office in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), until his retirement in 1948. He also wrote for the Bombay Chronicle in both English and Urdu. In 1915 he published this dictionary of terminology in common usage in the Urdu newspapers of the day. Entries are alphabetically arranged, and there is particular attention to the explanation of ambiguous words. The book also includes a description of the systems of government in India and in the United Kingdom and provides notes on important events and dates.
	Selected Poetry of Zafar Muntakhib Kulliyat-I Zafar is a collection of poetry by the last Mughal emperor and last ruler of the Timurid Dynasty, Muhammad Bahadur Shah II (1775–1862), generally known as Bahadar Shah Zafar. The son of Akbar Shah II, the ruler of a declining empire, Zafar was a prolific writer and a great Urdu poet. He was influenced by Sauda, Meer, and Insha, eminent Urdu poets of the 18th–early 19th centuries. Zafar was also a noted patron of contemporary poets, including Ghalib, Dagh, Shah Naseer, Momin, and Zauq. He came to the throne in 1837, but his control did not reach far beyond Delhi’s Red Fort. After the Uprising of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion), the British exiled him to Rangoon, where he lived out his days. Much of his poetry laments loss and suffering and the mental pain of imprisonment. He wrote geets, poems with a melodious haunting rhythm, but most of his prodigious output was in the lilting form of ghazals. Much of his work was lost in the chaos of 1857, but his surviving ghazals were gathered into a collection in which the eloquence, Sufi mysticism, and fluent style that characterize his work are evident. In this edition, potentially unfamiliar Urdu language is explained in Farsi and Arabic terms.
	Panjabi Grammar: A Brief Grammar of Panjabi As Spoken in the Wazirabad District Thomas Grahame Bailey (1872–1942) was a Church of Scotland missionary in India who made extensive studies of northern Indian languages. After studying Hindi and Urdu at the London University School of Oriental Studies, he went on to publish books on Panjabi (now usually called Punjabi), Himalayan dialects, Urdu, Kanauri, Kashmiri, Shina, and other languages. Panjabi Grammar: A Brief Grammar of Panjabi As Spoken in the Wazirabad District was written at the request of an official of the government of Punjab, in what was then a part of British India. Bailey chose to write about the language as it was spoken in the villages lying within ten miles (16 kilometers) of the town of Wazirabad, and gave preference to “village Panjabi, as being purer and more vigorous than city speech.” The book provides an overview of Punjabi grammar, in English with transliterations of Punjabi words. Topics covered include pronunciation, the gender of nouns, cases, regular and irregular verbs, tenses, and adjectives and adverbs. Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language, widely spoken in a number of distinct dialects in present-day northwest India and eastern Pakistan.
	Survey of India: Specimens of Map Drawing The Survey of India was established in 1767 to assist the British East India Company in carrying out survey work and to map territory for the purposes of administration, taxation, and defense. By the end of the 19th century, the survey had succeeded in mapping most of British India. This volume, published in 1904 under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel F.B. Longe, Surveyor-General of India, was intended as a guide to the styles of drawing employed in the Survey of India. The “Note for Guidance” on the opening page states that “lines must be sharp and clean, and the ink used must be perfectly black.” Meticulous care was needed in drawing maps that would be reproduced by photozincography, a process involving the use of zinc plates developed in Britain in the 1850s for the national Ordnance Survey, but which was little used in Britain after the 1880s. Officers were warned that “lines or names which are gray or in any way faint or broken, entail much labour in touching up on the plates,” and that “before submitting any map for publication it should be examined under a magnifying glass.” The work contains 44 specimens, for the most part taken from existing departmental maps produced by the Survey of India.
	Black Waters: The Strange History of Port Blair Tavarikh-i ‘ajib (Black waters: The strange history of Port Blair) is an account of the British penal colony of Port Blair, located in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean. The British first established a naval base and penal colony on the islands in 1789, which they had abandoned by 1796 because of disease. Following the Uprising of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion), the British authorities in India saw a new need for a secure prison in a remote location, and construction began in Port Blair later that year. In subsequent decades, many political prisoners were housed in the Cellular Jail, also called Kala Pani (Black Waters). Muhammad Jafar (1838–1905) was deported to the Andaman colony for his part in the 1857 uprising. In this book, he describes the life and customs of the islanders, the rules and regulations for the management of the convicts in the period 1858–79, and the people in authority at the penal colony. He also highlights major events, such as the 1872 assassination at Port Blair of Governor-General Lord Mayo. The book includes a table of Hindi and Urdu words and phrases and Arabic equivalents. Other tables detail the many languages spoken in the colony. The work is illustrated with drawings of the inhabitants and of local flora and fauna. It was first published in 1890; this copy is the second, revised and expanded, edition of 1892.
	A History of Sindh: Volume I The prolific Urdu author and journalist Abdulhalīm Sharar (1860–1926) was born in and spent much of his life in Lucknow (in present-day Uttar Pradesh, India). He produced biographies, historical novels, romantic novels, histories, essays, and other works. Tarikh-e-Sindh (A history of Sindh) is one of Sharar’s major historical works. Permanent settlement in Sindh, a province of present-day Pakistan, dates back to about 7000 BC. The Indus Valley civilization, one of the world’s oldest cultures, flourished in Sindh in 3300–1750 BC, rivaling those of Egypt and Mesopotamia in size and sophistication. Sindh became a Persian province in the sixth century BC, and was conquered by Alexander the Great in about 326 BC. In the ensuing centuries, Buddhist Greco-Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Rajputs held sway in the region. In 711 AD, the Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh with a force of 20,000 cavalry and five catapults. The Arab conquest was followed by widespread conversion to Islam, the building of Mansura as the capital, and development of a port city at Debal. Muslim geographers, historians, and travelers over the centuries wrote about or visited the region, sometimes using the name "Sindh" for the entire area from the Arabian Sea to the Hindu Kush.
	The History of the Urdu Language This work, published in Delhi in 1920, is a history of the Urdu language from its origins to the development of an Urdu literature. Urdu and Hindi share an Indo-Aryan base, but Urdu is associated with the Nastaliq script style of Persian calligraphy and reads right-to-left, whereas Hindi resembles Sanskrit and reads left-to-right. The earliest linguistic influences in the development of Urdu probably began with the Muslim conquest of Sindh in 711. The language started evolving from Farsi and Arabic contacts during the invasions of the Indian subcontinent by Persian and Turkic forces from the 11th century onward. Urdu developed more decisively during the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526) and the Mughal Empire (1526–1858). When the Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the Deccan Plateau, the literary language was influenced by the languages spoken in the south, by Punjabi and Haryanvi, and by Sufi and court usage. The earliest verse dates to the 15th century, and the golden period of Urdu poetry was the 18th–19th centuries. Urdu religious prose goes back several centuries, while secular writing flourished from the 19th century onward. Modern Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and is also spoken by many millions of people in India.
	Family Practitioner Homeopathy was introduced to India in the 1830s by John Martin Honigberger (1795–1869), a Romanian-born student of Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), the German physician regarded as the founder of homeopathic medicine. Honigberger spent some 15 years in Lahore, where his early patients included Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab and the son of the Maharaja’s military advisor, General Jean François Allard. Homeopathy first flourished in Punjab and Bengal, before spreading to other parts of British India. In this book, Mirza Allah Baig Lakhnavi gives concise instructions for the purchase and safekeeping of homeopathic medicines. He describes homeopathic treatments, in which practitioners use highly diluted preparations to induce symptoms similar to those needing a cure, a principle Hahnemann called “let like be cured by like.” The author discusses such remedies in relation to a wide range of ailments, from minor dermatological problems and stomach upsets to serious diseases of the heart, kidneys, and liver.
	The Drama of Akbar Muḥammad Ḥusain Āzād (also called Ehsan Azad, circa 1834–1910) was a successful Urdu poet and a writer of vivid prose, particularly in his historical writing. He was born in Delhi, where his father, Muhammad Baqir, edited the first Urdu newspaper, Delhi Urdu Akhbar. Muhammad Baqir’s involvement in the Uprising of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion) led to his execution by the British. His son moved to Lahore several years later, where he taught Arabic at Government College and was subsequently professor of Urdu and Persian at Oriental College. Āzād wrote about 20 books, some published posthumously, and he is acclaimed as a master of Urdu prose style. His most important books include a history of Urdu poetry, his tales of medieval Indian history, his allegorical essays, and this work, Darbar-e-Akbari (The drama of Akbar), a history of the times of Akbar the Great (1556–1605). The drama, in 12 parts, was first published in 1910 and focuses particularly on Akbar’s son, Salim, who as Jahangir (Persian for “Conqueror of the World”) ruled the Mughal Empire from 1605 until 1627. Mehr-un-Nisaa, the beautiful and intelligent widow of a rebel officer, came to court where, several years later in 1611, the emperor married her and gave her the title of Nur Jahan, meaning "Light of the World." She was devoted to Jahangir, and he was so absorbed in her that he entrusted to her most of the work of governing the empire. In the drama, the dialogue brings the characters to life and love is portrayed as a magical force.
	Earthquakes of India: Volume I This work describes the events before, during, and after a massive earthquake that struck early in the morning of April 4, 1905, at Kangra, a town in the Himalayan foothills in the northern region of India historically known as Punjab (in the present-day state of Himachal Pradesh). Before the quake, seismic activity had extinguished the flames of combustible gas that usually jetted out at the nearby Hindu temple of Jawala Mukhi, and worshippers thought the gods displeased. The earthquake and its aftershocks killed between 20,000 and 25,000 people and caused major damage to Kangra Fort, first mentioned in the fourth century BC in the annals of Alexander the Great. Most buildings in Kangra were flattened, with great destruction in other more distant parts of the region. The accounts included in this book were compiled and edited by Muhammad Abdul Qadir, also called Ta’ib Baduwi, about whom little is known beyond his authorship of another book concerning warfare between Turkey and Greece and his ownership of the Army Press at Simla.
	Sound Advice Muḥammad Ḥusain Āzād (also called Ehsan Azad, circa 1834–1910) was a successful Urdu poet and a writer of vivid prose, particularly in his historical writing. He was born in Delhi, where his father, Muhammad Baqir, edited the first Urdu newspaper, Delhi Urdu Akhbar. Muhammad Baqir’s involvement in the Uprising of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion) led to his execution by the British. Āzād moved to Lahore several years later, where he taught Arabic at Government College and was subsequently professor of Urdu and Persian at Oriental College. He wrote about 20 books, some published posthumously. This work includes many of his allegorical stories about the society of his day and moral lessons for the young. The book also discusses and promotes women's education. Āzād claimed that he found the manuscript of this work in an old bag of his father’s, but the book appears to have been written by Āzād around the time of his move to Lahore.