266 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION, ETC. 



rates) in from two days to a week to Mombasa, whence the produce can 

 be shipped to all parts of the world. Consequently, the railway has 

 almost entirely abolished the caravan trade througliout a considerable 

 slice of East Central Africa. This has done away with the need for slaves, 

 and with the hardships which even the paid porters engaged on the East 

 African coast had often to endure on journeys through deserts and swamps 

 and over frosty mountains to Uganda. 



It is true that considerable scope still exists for subsidiary trade 

 caravans starting away from any }ioint on the Uganda Eailway to the 

 north, south, and west. But not only is the need for the use of human 

 porterage further curtailed by the facilities for water transport offered by 

 the vast area of the Victoria Nyanza and the not far distant waters of 

 the navigable Victoria Nile (with Lake Kioga, etc.), of Lake Dweru and 

 Albert Edward, and of Lake Albert and the navigable White Nile ; but 

 even then a start from a railway base, where all the comforts and 

 requisites for a caravan journey can be obtained, to any point in the 

 territories of the L'ganda Protectorate, is a far less uncomfortable, lengthy, 

 and unhealthy undertaking than the old journey from ^Mombasa for 600 

 or 700 miles inland to the nearest point at which profitable trade could be 

 conducted. ^Moreover, the railway, as it passes through the disappointing 

 territories of British East Africa, will cause these territories to cease their 

 disappointment, just as French railways in Tunisia and Algeria are making 

 the very desert habitable and profitable. Alongside the line settlements 

 secure from the raids of lawless tribes, provided with the certainty of 

 water, provisions, and communication with the outer world, are springing 

 up ; cultivation and irrigation are producing crops and maintaining live- 

 stock, which the railway rapidly turns into money. The natives are 

 acquiring a taste for regular, well-paid work, and have an incentive to 

 work in the (to them) inexpressible delight of travelling at a rapid pace 

 in a third-class carriage. 



So far from leading to the extermination of the game, the railway has 

 actually come to the fore as a means of game preservation. It is really 

 amazing how all the wild animals, except perhaps the lion, have taken to 

 the railway. The big and small game soon realised the fact that they 

 were shot at less and less from the railway line, and finally not at all, 

 while on the other hand the lions, and perliaps leopards, were perturbed 

 by the noise of the train, and began to shun the line, for, as regards shooting, 

 exceptions were naturally made in their favour ! However strict have been 

 the Grame Kegulations in force for the protection of game along the line, 

 naturally no restriction has been placed on the shooting of lions, leopards, 

 and hysenas. Whether or not these deductions are fanciful, the plain fact 

 remains to be testified to by any one who now takes a journey on the 



