CHAPTER X. 



THE GAME OF UGANDA AND THE EASTERN CONGO. 



DIRECTLY you cross Lake Victoria and arrive in Uganda you meet with a 

 complete change of scenery and country. Uganda has not the variety and 

 quantity of game to boast of that is possessed by East Africa. Still, it has 

 plenty of the commoner species, such as waterbuck, hartebeest, Uganda kob, bush- 

 buck, and reedbuck ; and the country is famous for elephant and buffalo. On the 

 Nile are found many interesting species which do not exist in East Africa — interesting 

 in that they are not commonly obtained by the usual tourist-sportsman. 



One thing which forcibly strikes the hunter coming from the plainlands of East 

 Africa is the difference in the habits of the game of this part, and likewise the bush- 

 craft of the natives. The game (as is usual with animals dwelling in bush or long, 

 coarse-grass country) is at once more thinly distributed and more wary ; and the 

 natives, who are naturally adapted to the conditions of the country, will be found to be 

 better trackers than natives of the short-grass and open plainlands. They have also a 

 wonderful aptitude for finding their ways about in thick country where no general view 

 is obtainable and no landmarks are visible. In possessing these qualities they 

 are like the natives of the thick-grass countries of North-Eastern Rhodesia and 

 Nyasaland. 



The shooting parts of the Protectorate of Uganda are, generally speaking, on the 

 westward side, for the eastern end of Uganda proper, on the borders of Lake Victoria, 

 is thickly populated. On the westward side are situated the two game reserves of 

 the Protectorate, the Budonga Forest reserve and the Semliki or Ruisamba reserve. 

 Both of these are ill-defined in their limits, and in many places it is difficult or 

 impossible to tell where the reserves begin and end. 



The famous elephant centres are Masindi and Toro. In the neighbourhood of 

 Masindi the elephants yield soft or " Uganda " ivory — very thick and heavy in tusk. 

 This soft ivory is also found on the Nile, on both banks of the Bahr-al-Gebel, and in 

 Buddu. Of the other game of the Masindi district, lions are found, but, like most 

 bush lions, they are wary and hard to bag. Their chief food in this long-grass country 

 appears to be pig. 



