134 THE WESTERN PROVINCE 



lakes of 8outli Ontral Africa in tuni by the Eantu tribes lining their 

 shores. 



The District of Toro, which, from an administrative point of view, also 

 includes the British territory of IMboga, to the north of the Semliki River, 

 is not a very clearly defined or homogeneous country from the native 

 point of view. It really consists of a bundle of little principalities, which 

 at the commencement of the British Protectorate were confederated and 

 made to recognise as supreme chief the king of Toro })roper, this being 

 a small country on the east of the Ruwenzori range. The sub-district of 

 Kitakwenda (formerly an independent [irincipality), in the south of the 

 Toro District, is a very rich piece of country from an agricultural point of 

 view, but contains a good many tedious swamps, which are not at present 

 traversed in all directions by causeways, as in Uganda. 



North of Kitakwenda one comes to the Kiver Mpanga, rather a- notable 

 stream, which rises on the north-eastern flanks of Kuwenzori, and after a 

 great bend eastwards flows into ]^ake Dweru. For the first half of its 

 course the ^Mpanga Hows through a dense belt of tro})ical forest, which 

 extends south-west from near the frontier of Uganda (not far from the 

 Albert Nyanza) to the nortli end of Lake Dweru. In the second part of 

 its course the ]Mpanga looks very lik(^ a niuuntain stream in Scotland, 

 tearing down through a boldly designed country of grassy mountains and 

 hills with outcro])s of granite, and with only a few trees in the sheltered 

 hollows. All this bit of scenery is very picturesipie. Along the course 

 of the ^I})anga are handsome acacias growing among the boulders, and 

 numbers of cycads. This is the only place where, in the course of all my 

 travels through the Uganda Protectorate, I ha\e seen a cycad (EncepJial(irtos) 

 growing. These distant allies of the Conlfera' are relics of a bygone order 

 of vegetation which flourished during the Carboniferous Epoch. They 

 have fronds like huge, coarse, leathery ferns, and also very like the fronds 

 of certain })alms. These leaves arise from the head of the stem, which 

 may be a short trunk or a long, prone, woody growth, recumbent on the 

 ground. In the middle of the fronds there push u[) one or more enormous 

 cones (like gigantic pineapples in shape), outwardly of a greyish green, 

 with hexagonal seeds offering internally a vivid orange pulp. 



The belt of tropical forest stretching north from Lake Dweru towards 

 Uuyoro frimning parallel with the Kuwenzori range, though twenty miles 

 distant from its foot-hills) is remarkable for its tropical luxuriance. It 

 lies at an altitude 1,000 feet below that of the L'ganda forests, as all this 

 valley of the Dweru and its feeding rivers forms a loop of the Albertine 

 depression, which almost encircles the Ruwenzori range. The streams 

 that circulate through this Mpanga forest are probably fed all the year 

 round by the melting snows of Ruwenzori. They always seem to be full 



