66 THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 



of rivers that are narrow marshes, and of lakes that may have open water 

 in their centre, but are belted round the sides with nntraversable swamps — 

 appears to extend from Bnkedi across the plains to the very verge of 

 Elgon's foot-hills, and thence again westwards to Muruli on the Victoria 

 Nile. Between Elgon and Bukedi, however, thougli the land is occasionally 

 swampy, it is excellent soil, and a good proportion of it has been put 

 under cultivation by the fine, tall naked tribe of the Elgumi,* a race 

 speaking a language closely allied to the Suk. There are a good many 

 ant-hills in the Elgumi country, and it is the custom of the natives when 

 strangers pass along the paths to cluster on these ant-hills until the little^ 

 mounds become a mass of black humanity, that stands perfectly immobile, 

 silent, neither friendly nor hostile, watching the passer-by. The men are 

 generally resting their hands on long wands, and are often accompanied 

 by prick-eared dogs of pied black and white, or black and tan and white^ 

 that are singularly like a lireed of dogs depicted on the Egyptian monuments. 

 The lithe, well-})roportioned limbs of the tall Elgumi, coupled with their 

 faces that are often handsome and of regular outline, make them quite a 

 picturesque adjunct to the spacious landscapes of their country, with its 

 fertile fields, its patches of a])ple-green marsh, and its stretches of clear 

 blue water. The hills and isolated mountains dotted here and there over 

 the Elgumi and Bukedi countries assume quaint forms and outlines, notably 

 that square-cut chunk, not yet placed on any map, known to the ]\Iasai as 

 Longelai, to the Elgumi as Namboga, and to the Kavirondo as Kangaiwa^ 

 South of the marshy countries of Bukedi and Elgumi is the District 

 of Busoga, a land which has a strong resemblance in its })resent inhabitants 

 and in its formation and physical geography to the adjoining country of 

 Uganda. Busoga is part of the dam wliich shores up the northern end 

 of the Victoria Nyanza, through which the Nile breaks at its birth. The 

 northern parts of Busoga, where they verge on Lake Kioga and Lake 

 Mporogoma, are below the surface of the Victoria Nyanza in altitude. The 

 land very gradually rises as you proceed southwards at least 1,000 feet 

 in average height, and is at its highest where it overlooks the shores 

 of the great lake. Except in the northern j)art8 of Busoga, near the 

 marshes, the country is still thickly forested, and it was at one time 

 evidently one vast tropical forest, like portions of Uganda, Toro, and 

 Unyoro, and like much of Kavirondo likewise was. The traveller comings 

 from the east' feels, when he crosses the Sio Eiver and enters Busoga, 

 that he has reached something like West Africa at last. Banana plantations 

 grow everywhere in splendid luxuriance. Whatever is not cultivated fields- 

 is tropical forest of grand appearance. The grey parrot of West Africa 



* Elgumi is the name given to them by the Masai. I believe they call themselves 

 " Wamia." 



