76 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. 



in foliage, are succeeded by forest trees laden with parasitic plants and interlaced 

 by festoons of huge creepers with the dense undergrowth. The brooks winding 

 along the lowlands seem to flow in underground channels impenetrable to the solar 

 rays. 



But however beautiful the flora of the upland plateaux, it does not appear to 

 be distinguished by great variety. Of the seven hundred and fifty species collected 

 by Grant between Zanzibar and the lower Nile, eighty, or at most a hundred, were 

 new to botanists. The floras of the Cape, of Abyssinia and the Nile are intermingled 

 on these uplands, where even some Indian species occur, and to these have recently 

 been added a number of European plants which here find a congenial home. Grant 

 thinks that Karagwe especially would be admirably suited for the cultivation of 

 the tea plant. The giant of these forests is the mpaffu, which distils an aromatic 

 gum from its enormous trunk 24 to 26 feet in girth. 



Like the flora, the fauna of the plateaux is distinguished from that of the sur- 

 rounding regions by but few indigenous species. The lake is inhabited, like the 

 Nile and the Niger, by hippopotami and crocodiles, while multitudes of aquatic 

 fowl swarm in the sedge or perch on the branches of the trees fringing its shores. 

 From the cultivated tracts most wild beasts have been scared, although the neigh- 

 bouring thickets are still infested by the much-dreaded panther. Hyaenas also 

 prowl about the villages ; the wayfarer is often startled by the ill-omened yelp 

 of the fox ; small game is hunted by the wild cat and other allied species ; squirrels 

 spring from branch to branch of the forest trees, above which hover greyish parrots 

 noted for their large size and shrill voice ; lower down the flowery mead is alive 

 with all the brilliant world of smaller birds and butterflies. 



The wilder districts of TJ-Sui on the Karagwe frontier and of North U-Ganda, 

 where forest trees and cereals are replaced by the wild palm and ferns, are inhabited 

 by numerous species of the antelope, by the rhinoceros, elephant, and zebra. Here 

 also the swampy lands are peopled by the buffalo, while the wild boar finds a lair 

 in the dense brushwood. Several varieties of monkeys enliven the forests of the 

 tableland, amongst them the coluhm guereza, noted for its rich white and black hair, 

 and possibly also the chimpanzee.* The lion is very rare on the equatorial uplands, 

 although his tremendous roar is occasionally heard, striking terror into the other 

 denizens of the forest. Ostriches sweep over the open plains; guinea-fowl in 

 countless numbers find a shelter in the bush, and the victims of the battlefield or 

 the executioner are removed by a small species of vulture, the scavenger of so many 

 tropical lands. 



Inhabitants. — The Bantus. 



Certain parts of the Upper Nile region are amongst the most densely peopled lands 



in Africa. The descriptions of Speke and Grant, of Stanley, Long, De Linant, and 



Gessi, as well as the partial estimates of the missionaries, are all unanimous on this 



point. According to these witnesses, some ten or twelve millions of souls are 



* Emin-Bey, Petermann's " Mittheilungen," 1881. 



