i62 TO LAKE ALBERT EDWARD 



Victoria Nyanza — the difference in the climate 

 suggests a much greater difference of altitude. The 

 air is dry and cool, and it may be safely predicted 

 that, if any part of Uganda is destined ever to 

 become the permanent home of Europeans, it 

 will be Ankole 



At Mbarara, the capital of the province, we found 

 Mr. Knowles, the Sub-Commissioner, recovering 

 from an almost incredibly narrow escape from death. 

 Alone in his house one day he had been struck by a 

 flash of lightning, which burnt him severely, fused a 

 steel chain in one of his pockets, and ought to have 

 killed him instantaneously. He was rendered un- 

 conscious by the shock of the flash, which at the 

 same time set the house in a blaze, and he was only 

 dragged out by his boys just in time to escape 

 an untimely cremation. Thunderstorms are, per- 

 haps, the most dangerous feature of life in Uganda ; 

 in some districts they occur almost daily, and are 

 responsible for many deaths. 



All the open spaces of Mbarara were crowded 

 with herds of cattle when we arrived there, which 

 made the place look like a gigantic cattle fair. The 

 beasts were not brought for sale, but as payment of 

 a fine imposed by the Government on that part of 

 the province in which the murder of Mr. Gait had 

 taken place the year before. The cattle of Ankole 

 are famous for their gigantic size and for their 

 horns, which grow to a prodigious length. Many 

 of the chiefs are exceedingly wealthy people, and 



