TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 837 



3. On Uganda and its People. By Captain "Williams, E.A. 



Tbis paper was a study of the people of Uganda -witli regard to their physique, 

 industries, customs, and mode of government. 



4. On Hausa Pilgrimages from the Western Sudan} 

 By Rev. Charles H. Robinson, M.A. 



Mr. Robinson began by explaining the sources from which the facts referred to 

 in bis paper were derived. He had just returned from a preliminary journey 

 along part of the north border of the Sahara, which had been made with a view to 

 ascertain the possibility of crossing the Great Sahara from Tripoli in order to visit 

 the Hausa States which lie to the west of Lake Chad, and to the north of the 

 rivers Niger and Binue. This journey he proposes to attempt during the coming 

 year. 



His intercourse with Hausa-speaking natives in North Africa served to reveal 

 the enormous extent to which the pilgrimage to Mecca is affecting the life and 

 habits of the people in the far interior. Many thousands of pilgrims find their 

 way thence to Mecca, some by crossing the Great Sahara, and going by sea 

 from Tripoli, others by way of Wadai, Darfur, Khartum, and Suakim. He read 

 an account given by a Hausa pilgrim of the capture of Khartum and the death of 

 General Gordon. 



5. On the Belation of Lahe Tanganyika and the Congo. 

 By J. Howard Reid. 



6. On Environment in relation to the Native Tribes of the Congo Basin. 



By Herbert Ward. 



Throughout the vast and densely populated area of the Congo basin the native 

 tribes are without history and without a written language. The tribal charac- 

 teristics and the mental condition of the natives differ widely in tribes inhabiting 

 different localities. It is an accepted fact that the Congo population is allied to 

 the Great Bantu group, one of the most extensive of the African racial divisions, 

 and it is but natural to infer that the phenomena of environment represent the 

 main element of influence to which these variations of character are to be 

 attributed. The tribes of the Lower Congo, which is a well-favoured country, with 

 fertile soil and well-defined seasons, are represented as being mild, peaceful, and 

 superstitious. The tribes of the Upper Congo, who reside in the great forest 

 swamp, a region where all is sunless gloom and damp decay, where torrential rains 

 and the tropical sun produce a fermenting hotbed of exuberant foliage, are, on the 

 citKerhand, typical savages, indulging in cannibalism and waging perpetual petty 

 warfare upon their neighbours. It would appear obvious that the Bantu tribes, 

 f ow inhabiting this great forest "country through which the Upper Congo River 

 and its affluents flow, have degenerated, through stress of unfavourable environ- 

 fiaent, since the unknown tirne wh'en the Vai'ious tribes' of this race travelled 

 towards the south and the west. 



7. On the Vertical Belief of Africa. By Dr. H. G. Schlichter. 



The author submitted a series of ten sections of the vertical relief of Northern 

 and Central Africa. These sections were drawn from east to west at intervals of 

 4° of latitude northward from 8° S. The vertical scale is exaggerated eighty 

 times compared with the horizontal. These sections are .of value, not only in 

 showing the relations of vertical relief, but also in indicating by dotted lines the 

 regions where observations are wanting ; they vividly present the gaps which remain 

 in our knowledge of the configuration of Africa. 



' Published in the (ieoff. Journ., ii. (1893), pp. 451-464. 



