A DISPUTED TERRITORY 163 



own as many as forty or fifty thousand head of 

 cattle. The ruHng class in Ankole, the Wahima, 

 are a pastoral people, who are supposed to have 

 come from the North in not very remote times. 

 Many of them are exceedingly good-looking, and 

 have features which recall those of the Fellaheen of 

 Lower Egypt. The King of Ankole, though quite 

 a young man, is in height, and in every other 

 dimension, the biggest man I have ever seen. 



Going west from Mbarara we were accompanied 

 by an escort of twenty police, not because the 

 population of Western Ankole was hostile (we found 

 them perfectly friendly), but because our route lay 

 through the disputed territory between Uganda and 

 the Congo Free State. The two Governments had 

 agreed to leave the country severely alone, and to 

 forbid expeditions to pass through it until the frontier 

 had been settled ; but we obtained a special dispensa- 

 tion from the authorities, as we were travelling for 

 scientific purposes. It might be remarked that our 

 own people kept most loyally to the agreement, but 

 the same thing cannot be said of the other side. A 

 large tract of country to the east of Lake Albert 

 Edward, which was formerly regarded as being 

 British territory, was in the occupation of a Belgian 

 * surveying expedition,' which required for its 

 protection a hundred black soldiers, not to mention 

 innumerable armed ' messengers,' who wandered 

 about the country for one reason or another, 'i'he 

 survey beacons on the top of every hill, which 



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