236 AFRICA 



more warlike, have established an ascendancy over the 

 tillers of the soil. These countries are capable of a 

 prosperous development under the influence of the white 

 man : the Uganda plateau, especially, offers a vast scope 

 on account of its healthy climate. Several animal foes 

 such as the tsetse fly and the tick, however, will have 

 to be stamped out before a regular settlement is possible. 

 The Zambezi basin and Unyamwezi. As far as we 

 know, the vast plateau territory which sweeps round 

 from Angola to the Great Lakes over the Congo-Zambezi 

 divide and most of the Zambezi basin, and beyond Tan- 

 ganyika to Victoria Nyanza, offers throughout a fairly 

 uniform type of savana repeating, though at a much 

 higher elevation, the physical conditions of the Sudan. 

 Under the general influence of a characteristic savana 

 climate, the nature of the ground and of the relief seems 

 to be the determining factor in the distribution of the 

 vegetation. A light tropical forest of a leaf -shedding 

 type, which in many instances resembles a thin oak 

 forest, is the tallest form of it. Besides this, many 

 varieties of savana woods occur, now in clumps and 

 groves, now even in extensive patches: among them 

 may be enumerated : thin copses of deciduous trees with 

 straight, slender trunks and flat, spare crowns supported 

 by gaunt, twisted limbs ; no undergrowth but grass up 

 to three feet high ; open clusters of trees of a stouter 

 and more bushy growth with clear, round heads and fine 

 foliage; jungles and orchards of loose-limbed acacias 

 overgrown with tall grass; doltings of umbrella-shaped 

 thorn-bushes in the savana with the solitary baobab 

 conspicuous in the distance On drier and more broken 

 basaltic and limestone rocks the grass and woods give 

 way to stunted forms of grey thorn scrub relieved by 

 shrubby evergreens and woody perennials. Candelabra 



