THE VICTORIA REGION. 43 



of the rain water acting on iron and other 

 minerals. 



In a cultivated place the forest will have been 

 cut down and replaced by banana plantations and 

 fields of maize and millet. 



Usually this cultivation extends from the end of 

 the fiat alluvium, the old marsh (which is liable to 

 drought if not irrigated), two-thirds of the way up 

 the hills, but in Uganda the population has been 

 so much diminished that only a small proportion 

 is under cultivation. Probably wherever a loose 

 dark soil is found without pebbles of laterite, the 

 land is good, and this is also the case wherever the 

 " elephant grass " grows abundantly. 



So far as has been ascertained at present, the 

 natural productions of Uganda are not of very great 

 value. Minerals, except iron, are not known to 

 occur. Ivory certainly exists, but of course only 

 in the most inaccessible places. In valuable 

 medicines and fibre plants, as also in dyes and 

 gums, the Victoria region is extraordinarily poor. 

 There are certainly a very few products of con- 

 siderable value (e.g., beeswax and hippopotamus 

 teeth), but the Victoria region can only yield 

 any considerable export trade from the results of 

 plantation. 



Forests exist in almost every valley, and also on 

 the immediate shore of the Victoria everywhere. 



In the south of Buddu there seem to be enor- 

 mous tracts of fine large timber. Sometimes on 



