The waters around the islands are rich in fish, and the local Bavuma and Basoga are fishermen.
But the numbers kept growing, with students coming from as far as Busoga, Bunyoro, Toro and Ankole.
The income generated by cotton sales made the Buganda kingdom relatively prosperous, compared with the rest of colonial Uganda, although before World War I cotton was also being grown in the eastern regions of Busoga, Lango, and Teso.