CHAPTER III 

 THE KINGD03£ OF UGANDA 



'"T^HE Province or native Kingdom. of Uganda includes (besides the Sese 

 JL Islands which were briefly described in the last chapter) all that 

 part of the Protectorate which is bounded on the east bv tlie ^'ictoria 

 Nile and Lake Kioga, on the north by the marshy Kiver Kafu, the Ngusi 

 River, and a corner of Lake Albert, on tlie west loy the Misisi River and 

 by a line running in zigzags from the Misisi southwards to the German 

 frontier at the first degree of south latitude. AVith the exception of a 

 portion of this country bordering on Unyoro in the nortli, there is a 

 remarkalile similarity about all the landscapes in Uganda. There are 

 rolling green downs rising in places almost into mountains, and every vallev 

 in between is a marsh. This marsh is often concealed by s[)lendid tropical 

 forest. Sometimes, however, it is open to tlie sky, and the water is hidden 

 from sight by dense-growing papyrus. Standing on one of these in- 

 numerable grass-covered hills in Uganda, you look from your dark green 

 and chocolate-red eminence on to a broad expanse lielow, which seems at 

 first to be a smooth greensward, but is in reality a marsh of half a mile 

 in breath. 



This is a country intended for switchback railways. The broad native roads 

 make as straight as possible for their mark, like the roads of the Romans, 

 and, to the tired traveller, seem to pick out preferentially the highest and 

 steepest hills, which they ascend perpendicularly and without comi)romise. 

 It is impossible to ride up or down many of these hillsides, and diflficult 

 enough to walk. Yet the chocolate-coloured road surmounts a hill and 

 [ilunges down into the inevitable marsh or forest, which it crosses on a 

 long causeway of white sand built up between stakes and a basketwork 

 of lath. After the hot sunshine, which has played on the traveller's back as 

 he toiled up the hill, with its red soil and very green grass, tlie plunge into 

 the cool depths of forest, with their innumerable palms, wild bananas, 

 and soaring trees with white trunks, gives a delightful sense of relief, and 

 he is sorry when the pretty causeway of white sand comes to an end, 

 and lie must toil once more up the opposite bank of red clay. I am afraid 

 the country being of this nature it will prove extremely expensive to 



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