THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM. 109 



rounding Lake Shirwa, on the alluvial flats and plains 

 bordering Lake Nyassa to the east, to the west and to 

 the north. They appear again in many places on the 

 high interior plateau between Nyassa and Tanganyika ; 

 they cover extensive regions of old lake deposits on the 

 shores of Tanganyika itself ; while they reappear on the 

 plains south of the Albert Edward Nyanza. They are to 

 be found again in patches mixed up with the true forest 

 all along the course of the Semliki valley and on the shores 

 of the Albert Nyanza. They are further to be found 

 on old lake deposits and alluvial flats in some parts of 

 Uganda, and I am informed that they are also a charac- 

 teristic feature of many portions of the west coast of Africa, 

 and of the hinterlands beyond it. 



Park-lands, districts having the peculiar characteristics 

 of a kept park, thus cover immense areas in the African 

 interior. They cover, as a matter of fact, thousands upon 

 thousands of square miles, and the more closely we 

 examine them the more curious and perplexing their 

 existence appears. 



We have, indeed, only to look for an instant at a 

 district such as that to which I have alluded on the Upper 

 Shiri river, in order that a variety of questions shall 

 present themselves, which are all more easily put than 

 answered. In the first place, why have these districts 

 assumed the characters of an artificial park ? Why are the 

 trees isolated as if they had been grown for show ? Why 

 is there no thick bush covering the ground, and converting 

 the whole place into a thick jungle ? Why are there so 

 very many different sorts of trees ? 



If we meet with a park in England the mere fact of its 

 existence implies the present or past operations of a park- 

 keeper or a landscape gardener, who was not only an agent 



