--- a/hgwebdir.cgi
+++ b/hgwebdir.cgi
@@ -2,14 +2,17 @@
 #
 # An example CGI script to export multiple hgweb repos, edit as necessary
 
+# adjust python path if not a system-wide install:
+#import sys
+#sys.path.insert(0, "/path/to/python/lib")
+
+# enable importing on demand to reduce startup time
+from mercurial import demandimport; demandimport.enable()
+
 # send python tracebacks to the browser if an error occurs:
 import cgitb
 cgitb.enable()
 
-# adjust python path if not a system-wide install:
-#import sys
-#sys.path.insert(0, "/path/to/python/lib")
-
 # If you'd like to serve pages with UTF-8 instead of your default
 # locale charset, you can do so by uncommenting the following lines.
 # Note that this will cause your .hgrc files to be interpreted in