32 CIVILIZED UGANDA 



within the mark. Apart from the appalling waste 

 of human life, it involves a very serious loss to 

 the State, which cannot afford to lose a large and 

 thriving population living along its main waterway. 

 One of the effects was to be seen in the increasing 

 difficulty of inducing porters and labourers to remain 

 at Entebbe, where they are afraid of catching the 

 disease. There is also the not inconceivable pos- 

 sibility of its being turned into an anti-European 

 weapon ; an unscrupulous agitator could easily per- 

 suade a half-educated people that the white men 

 were responsible for the disease, and that the obvious 

 remedy was to turn them out of the country. Happily, 

 only four Europeans have been attacked by sleeping 

 sickness in Uganda, though the number in the Congo 

 Free State is probably a good deal greater. 



The forest on the slopes between the town and 

 the lake has been ingeniously converted into a 

 Botanic Garden. Many of the trees have been 

 cut down, and the thick undergrowth has been 

 cleared away, with the result that one can see the 

 splendid proportions of the trees that are left. As 

 a rule the trees in an African forest are crowded 

 so closely together, and their trunks are so much 

 obscured by a tangle of creepers, that one does not 

 realize what giants they are. In the cleared spaces 

 experiments are being made with cotton and various 

 kinds of rubber-producing plants ; some of these latter 

 promise to do very well. The Botanic Garden is 

 a very pleasant place for a stroll in the evening after 



