METEOROLOGY AND GEOLOGY :'.():>, 



to November. The lieaviest rains prohahly fall at this time. In drv 

 seasons severe droughts may occur. It is usually a country of strong 

 winds, the winds blowing down the valley of the Nile from the south 

 during the summer months and from the north during the winter. 



(5) The Alpine Rerjion. — Tiiis of course is very small in area, and 

 includes the Kuwenzori range above 8,000 feet in altitude, two or three 

 points in Ankole of 8,000 feet or over, the tops of some of the higii 

 mountains in the Nile and Central Provinces, the upper regions of :\Ioimt 

 Elgon, and the mountain ridges on tlie Nandi Plateau of Chibcharamin, 

 Elgeyo, Londiani, and the high jnountains immediately to the west of 

 Lake Naivaslia. The average temperature in these regions may be ])laced 

 hypothetically at 45 . The temperatures on the snow and ice may descend 

 to perhaps 25^. 



The degree of navigability of lakes and rivers is indicated with 

 approximate correctness on the accompanying map. 



The climate in tropical Africa does not always bear a direct ratio to 

 health. Questions of salubrity and insalulirity depend on many other 

 local conditions than the degree of heat or cold, or the variation between 

 extremes of temperature. It may be said without exaggeration that 

 between the Zambezi on the south and the Albert Nyanza en the north, 

 between Kilimanjaro on the east and the tameroons and Senegal on the 

 west, the climate of Central Africa is generally agreeable, and much more 

 equable than in tropical Asia. The whole of Uganda, except parts of the 

 Rudolf and Nile Provinces, has an agreeable climate, yet all jiarts of the 

 Protectorate below 4,500 feet in altitude tend to be unhealthy. This 

 would seem to be due, in the first place, to the germs of diseases which 

 are generated in marshy di.-tricts ; and, secondly, to the mosquitoes and 

 other agents for the introduction of those germs into the human frame. 

 If, therefore, some means could be found of abolishing the conditions which 

 produce those germs, or destroying the agents by which they reach the 

 human blood or digestive organs, the greater part of tropical Africa which 

 is not subjected to the exceptional heat and moisture of the west coast, 

 of Zanzibar, and of the Upper Nile Valley, would be fairly healthy for 

 European occupation. Nevertheless, I doubt whether in any districts which 

 are below 5,500 feet in altitude within the tropics the European race 

 could perpetuate itself from generation to generation without deteriorating. 

 Fortunately there are considerable areas within the East African Pro- 

 tectorates above this height, and, if intervening districts could be robbed 

 of their danger by the extinction of malaria and dy.sentery, or the means 

 by which we become infected with malaria or dysentery, tropical Africa 

 would lose its terrors, and produce and maintain several white nations. 



