CHAPTER 59
ANCIENT ROADS IN BUSOGA
Roads used to be made throughout the country by the people of each particular village. They used to be narrow, only about 3 to 4 yards wide, and were used freely by people and house-animals. They were controlled by the ruler of the country who issued orders about their maintenance regularly throughout the country. Sometimes the chiefs of the villages would instruct their people to cultivate their roads when they became due for cultivation. All people were supposed to go and cultivate their road but normally this was the job of the women, not men, except in the case of an overseer who was a man, and his main task was to supervise the women at work and to show them where each one stopped. Each person in a village was supposed to look after the roads within the village, so they cultivated the roads only up to where their village stopped. A chief or any other person who neglected to cultivate or maintain his part of the road which he was supposed to do, used to be convicted and fined.
Roads were not made over rivers or swamps, therefore there were no such things as bridges to cross rivers or swamps. There used to be much rain during those days which caused the waters of the rivers to swell that is why bridges were never constructed in the country.
Along the roads, fences were made on each side as far as the boundary of a whole mutala (which comprised several villages). The fences were made in order to keep away travellers and animals from coming to spoil the crops grown near the roads by the people of that mutala. The fences were made of Strychnia, Euphorbia spp and fig trees.
Jinja road in 1936. Main means of transport was by foot but in groups.