146 THE WESTERN PEOVINCE 



illustrated by the illustnition given in Chapter XVIIL, which is taken 

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



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

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

 hangs down the back. 



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

 cobus antelopes of four different 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 

 rhiuoceros," which was at one time thought to be restricted to the 

 countries south of the Zambezi. There are large numbers of elephants, 

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

 Central African variety, which differs from the Cape form Iw a lesser 

 development of the frontal boss, and horns that are longer and slightly 

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

 cheetahs, hunting-dogs, spotted hy?enas, and jackals make up the list of 

 the principal beasts of prey. 



The general aspect of this country east of the Nile and west of 

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

 German East Africa and Northern Nyasaland, differing thus from tlie 

 regions of the Eudolf Valley and Southern Abyssinia, which, together 

 with Galaland and Somaliland, make, as regards their flora and fauna, 

 rather a separate 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 parts of the Uganda Protectorate to the verge of 

 Mount 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 (PachytyhiS niigratorioides). These 

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

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

 tion of Uganda south of the Acholi country the locusts cannot completely 

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

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

 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 



