134 THE WESTERX PROYIXCE 



lakes of Soutli (Viitral Africa in turn hy the Bantu tribes lining their 

 sliores. 



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

 includes the British territory of ^Ilioga, to the north of tlie Semliki River, 

 is not a verv clear] v defined or homogeneou-; 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 proper, this being 

 a small countrv on the east of the Ruwenzori range. The sub-disti'ict of 

 Kitakwenda (formerly an independent principality), in the south of the 

 Toro District, i- a very ricli piece of country from an agricultural point of 

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

 traversed in all directions by causeways, as in Uganda. 



Xorth of Kitakwenda one comes to the River ^Ipanga, rather a notable 

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

 great bend eastwards flows, into Lake Dweru. Yov the first half of its 

 course the ]M[ianga flows through a dense belt of tropical forest, which 

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

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

 its course the ]\Ipanga looks very like a mountain stream in Scotland, 

 tearing down through a boldly designed country of grassy mountains and 

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

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

 of the Mpanga 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 L'ganda Protectorate, I have seen a cycad (Encephalartos) 

 growing. These distant allies of the Coniferce 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 palms. These leaves arise from the head of the stem, which 

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

 ground. In the middle of the fronds thei'e push up one or more enormous 

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

 with hexagonal seeds oft'ering internally a vivid orange pulp. 



The belt of tropical forest stretching north from Lake Dweru towards 

 Unvoro ^running parallel with the Ruwenzori 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 Uganda 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 cii'culate through this Mpanga forest are probably fed all the year 

 round bv the meltiusf snows of Ruwenzori. Thev alwavs seem to be full 



