146 THE WESTERN PROVINCE 



illustrated by the illustration given in Chapter XVIII., which is taken 

 from a photograph by Mr. E. N. Buxton. 



Many of the Lango or Latuka natives wear the extraordinary head- 

 dresses of the Suk and Turkana, a bag of plastered, felted hair which 

 hangs do\Vn the back. 



These Nile lands are usually the haunts of big game. Thousands of 

 cobus antelopes of four diiferent species, the bastard hartebeest, or tiang, 

 the hartebeest, or tetal. Baker's antelope (that northern form of hippo- 

 tragus which is scarcely distinguishable from the roan antelope), the eland, 

 the kudu, the bushbuck, and reedbuck are found in large numbers. 

 There is also the great square-lipped rhinoceros — the so-called "white 

 rhinoceros." which was at one time thought to be restricted to the 

 countries south of the Zambezi. There are large numbers of elej)hants, 

 and the nortlicrn form of giraffe. The buffalo apparently belongs to the 

 Central African varii'ty, which differs from the Cape form by a lesser 

 development of the frontal lioss, and horns tliat are longer and slightly 

 more similar in shape to those of the Indian buffalo. Lions, leopards, 

 cheetahs, hunting-dogs, s])otted hynMias, and jackals make u]) the list of 

 the principal l)easts of \)vey. 



The general asjiect of this country east t)f the Nile and west of 

 Turkana, in flora as in fauna, is very East African, resembling very much 

 German East Afiica and Northern Nvasaland, differing thus from the 

 regions of the Kudolf A'alley and Southern Abyssinia, which, together 

 with (lalaland and Somaliland, make, as regards their flora and fauna, 

 rather a sej)arate province by themselves; while, on the other hand, there 

 are few or none of the west coast affinities which stretch right across 

 the more southern })arts of the Uganda Protectorate to the verge of 

 jNIount Elgon. 



These countries of the Nile are terribly ravaged by locusts from time 

 to time, which appear to come from the desert regions to the north. It 

 is the red locust of Northern Africa (Pdchytt/lus onirjraturioichs). These 

 locust invasions stretch right up the Nile, past Lake Albert, into Toro and 

 Aukole, and across Uganda to the vicinity of Elgon. In the rich vegeta- 

 tion of L'ganda south of the Acholi country the locusts cannot completely 

 ruin the crojjs and bring about famines, as they do in the more arid 

 countries east of the Nile. Nevertheless, it is a grim and repidsive 

 spectacle to find oneself in the middle of a locust swarm. You may not 

 be thinking anything of the kind, and be riding through a charming 

 country, the trees in rich foliage, and perhaps lit up with bright flowers, 

 the birds singing and the sun shining. Far away in the distance on the 

 horizon are low, ragged clouds of a copper colour, which the heedless 

 traveller takes to be either strangely coloured cloudlets or the smoke of 



