vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



a few spots in tlic relatively low-lying valley of the Nile, where 

 the average daily heat is perhaps higher than in any other part 

 of Africa. AVithin the limits of this Protectorate are to be found 

 specimens of nearly all the most marked types of African man — 

 Congo Pygmies, and the low ape-like types of the Elgon and Semliki 

 forests, the handsome Bahima, who are negroids as much related to 

 the ancient Egyptians as to the average Negro, the gigantic 

 Turkaua, the wiry, stunted Andorobo, the Apollo-like Masai, the 

 naked Nile tribes, and the scrupulously clothed Baganda. These 

 last again are enthusiastic, casuistic Christians, while other tribes of 

 the Nile Province are fanatical Muhammadans. The Bahima are, 

 or were, ardent believers in witchcraft; the Basoga polytheists are 

 burdened with a multiplicit}' of minor deities, while the Masai 

 and kindred races have practically no religion at all. Cannibalism 

 lingers in the western corners of the Protectorate : while the 

 natives of other parts are importing tinned apricots, or are printing 

 and publishing in their own language summaries of their past 

 history. This is the country of the okapi, the whale-headed stork, 

 the chimpanzee and the five-horned giraffe, the rhinoceroses with 

 the longest horns, and the elephants with the biggest tusks. 



Whatever drawbacks may be found in the Uganda Protectorate 

 from the white man's point of view, monotony or lack of interest 

 is not among them. The book which follows this Preface is an 

 imperfect attempt on my part to give those who have not yet 

 visited Uganda some idea of wlnit is to be seen there, and to 

 place before them a collection of all the information which I have 

 been able to obtain personally or through the co-operation of friends 

 and colleagues as to the geology and biology, the anthropology, 

 lauii'uag-es, and habits and customs of the manv diverse tribes of 



7 •> 



the Protectorate (whose characteristics are fast being blurred and 

 overlaid by the rapid invasion of the country from the east coast, 

 and the gradual unification of speech and culture Avhich the 

 united efforts of Europeans, educated black men. and Indians are 

 producing). I have spent twenty months in this Protectorate. It 

 has been, of course, physically impossible to visit every part of 

 it, and there are some portions even yet that have never been 

 examined by a European. But where I could not go myself I 



