242 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



the atmosphere. Eleven years ago a great cloud 

 of death fell on Uganda. It had swept across 

 the Congo forests, and it set a seal of doom on a 

 thousand islets and habitations in this modern 

 Garden of Eden. Sleeping sickness has devas- 

 tated much of the Victoria Nyanza region. 

 Mengo, Kampala, Jinja, Entebbe, Munyonyo 

 and Lozeras have all come under its awful ban. 

 In a few brief years the Sese islands have been 

 well-nigh depopulated, and the shores of the 

 inland sea have cried to Heaven for deliverance. 

 It seems as though the plagues of the Pharaohs 

 have hastened down the Nile to stay the advance 

 of modern days, and well they have succeeded. 

 The heat of the Equator and the pestilence of the 

 sleep of death have held this Tropical Protectorate 

 safe from the prying eyes of the tourist season. 

 It has been well written — 



" All things in some divine 



And ^\ish'd for way, conspire as 



Nature knows, 



To some great good." 



Perhaps in the case of Uganda, where the native 

 asks and answers in the super-polite phrases of 

 Tokio, the deadly palpalis fly conspires to some 

 great good, for this jewel of the interior would 

 lose much of its bounteous brilliance were the 

 hands of all men to weigh its worth. And so 

 it nestles in its own unsullied wreath of beauty, 

 and hides its charms beneath a holocaust. 



