CHAPTEll III 

 THE KING I) 031 OF UGANDA 



^y^\iY. Province or native Kingdom of Uganda includes (besides the Sese 

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

 part of the Protectorate which is bounded on the east by the Victoria 

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

 Eiver, and a corner of Lake Albert, on the west by the ^lisisi River and 

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

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

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

 remarkable similarity about all the landscapes in Uganda. There are 

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

 in between is a marsh. This marsh is often concealed by splendid tropical 

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

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

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

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

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

 in lireath. 



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 })referentially the highest and 

 steepest hills, which they ascend perpendicularly and without compromise. 

 It is impossible to ride u[) or down many of these hillsides, and difficult 

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

 plunges down into the inevitable marsli 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, the 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 he 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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