130 A NATURALIST IN MID-AFRICA. 



That the Government should have deliberately 

 chosen an officer who knew nothing whatever of 

 the country to draw up a report at the very time 

 when Captain Lugard was at home, is only 

 another instance of the extremely hard treatment 

 which that gallant and energetic officer has (I am 

 glad to say only in the past) received. 



I have carefully abstained during this work 

 from criticising either Mr. Stanley's, Captain 

 Lugard' s, or the above-mentioned work, partly 

 because I wished to give simply my impression, 

 but chiefly because of the utter futility of doing so 

 in view of the detailed knowledge of the country 

 which will probably deluge us in the next few 

 years. One remark in the handbook, however 

 (p. 53), cannot be allowed to pass. "They," 

 Waganda, "are one of the strongest of the 

 negroid races, and will carry loads of 100 or 

 120 lbs. for 20 miles a day with ease." Any 

 person reading this in an authoritative Government 

 work (and the work in question is very authorita- 

 tive) would suppose that he could obtain as many 

 porters as he chose in Uganda, and would be 

 surprised on reaching Uganda to find that he 

 could not get the Waganda to carry loads at all ! 

 A bunch of bananas would be quite as much as 

 they could be induced to take. Such a mislead- 

 ing statement might mean the destruction of a 

 carefully thought out expedition. 



To return to the Salt lake, 1 quite agree with 



