Farewell to one of the most iconic places in the European race to discover Africa in the 19th century. Farewell to a national symbol of Uganda. Torrential rains at the end of February brought down a century-old tree under whose branches some of the most important encounters between the Buganda king of the time, Kabaka Mutesa I, and the most important adventurers of the era had taken place gold of the explorations.
The management of the University of Kyambogo, owner of the land where the tree is currently located, located eight kilometers from the capital, Kampala, announced the death of the specimen of the Canarium species, at least 150 years old, despite the fact that some experts believe it is over 200 years old. "The tree fell due to the downpour on Monday night," the university center explained in a statement.
The tree, known in the local language as Omuwafu, was part of the royal palace of the thirtieth reign of the Buganda kingdom a century and a half ago and it was in the shade of its robust branches that the Kabaka monarch received in 1875 British explorer Henry Morton Stanley, at the head of the legendary expedition to solve the last great mystery of African exploration: to travel the course of the Congo River to the sea.
According to Ugandan historians, under the now fallen tree was where the king wrote and delivered to Stanley a letter addressed to the Queen of England inviting missionaries and teachers to visit his lands. In its statement, the University of Kyambogo highlighted this event and praised the virtues of that pact. "Missionaries played a significant role in building an education system in Uganda after establishing schools and promoting literacy."
But the visit of the Bula Matari or "Rock Breaker", as the Congolese called Stanley because of his fondness for using dynamite to open his way, was not the only legendary visit witnessed by the 'Omuwafu tree. A few years earlier, in 1862, the king welcomed another of history's great explorers, the British John Hanning Speke, the first white man to see the sources of the White Nile, which he named Lake Victoria. A sick James Augustus Grant, renowned Scottish explorer, also attended that meeting. Grant himself left written in his memoirs the kind treatment that the Kabaka monarch had given him when he was so weak that he could not even get out of bed. "The king sent an officer and forty of his men to take me to his kingdom of Buganda, which I so longed to see... As I could not walk, they placed me on a wicker litter and to trot over the heads of four of them”.
Although the site no longer houses the royal palace, which is now in the Mengo neighborhood of the capital, Omuwafu has enormous historical and cultural value for the Buganda people. Even the university management refused years ago to build an educational complex next to the tree due to complaints from the local community, who warned that the works could endanger the tree.
After the fall of the century-old tree became known, the current monarch of the Buganda, Ronaldo Muwenda Kimera Mutebi II, asked the university to plant a new tree to replace the fallen specimen.
It is not the first time that the torrential rains of recent months have damaged a legendary tree in Africa.
Last June, a strong storm brought down the Cotton Tree in Sierra Leone, which was erected in the center of the country's capital, Freetown.
The ceiba tree, nearly 400 years old, has been a national emblem since the first settlers of the city in 1792, freed slaves from America who had won their freedom for having fought for the British Empire in the War of Independence americana, they gathered under its branches to pray together.
From that day, Freetown grew around that giant of an extraordinary cup, up to 15 meters wide and 70 meters high. The country's president, Julius Maada Bio, then described what had happened as a "great loss for the nation".
