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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



State and in the Kameruns. Probably 

 in no part of Africa are there such vast 

 woods of conifers. There are other dis- 

 tricts as hideously desert and void of any 

 form of vegetation as the worst part of 

 the Sahara. 



There is the largest continuous area of 

 marsh to be met with in any part of 

 Africa, and perhaps also the most con- 

 siderable area of tableland and moun- 

 tains rising continuously above 6,000 

 feet. Here is reached the highest point 

 on the whole of the African continent; 

 here is the largest lake in Africa, which 

 gives birth to the main branch of the 

 longest river in that continent. There 

 may be seen here perhaps the biggest ex- 

 tinct volcano in the world — Elgon. 



Though lying on either side of the 

 Equator, it contains over a hundred 

 square miles of perpetual snow and ice; 

 it also contains a few spots in the rela- 

 tively low-lying valley of the Nile, where 

 the average daily heat is perhaps higher 

 than in any other part of Africa. 



Within the limits of this region are 

 to be found specimens of nearly all 

 the most marked types of African man — 

 Congo pygmies and the low, ape-like 

 types of the Elgon and Semliki forests, 

 the handsome Bahima, who are negroids 

 as much related to the ancient Egyptians 

 as to the average negro, the gigantic 

 Turkana, the wiry, stunted Andorobo, 

 the Appollo-like Masai, the naked Nile 

 tribes, and the scrupulously clothed peo- 

 ple of Uganda. 



These last again are enthusiastic, casu- 

 istic Christians, while other tribes of the 

 Nile province are fanatical Muhamma- 

 dans. The Bahima are, or were, ardent 

 believers in witchcraft ; the Basoga poly- 

 theists are burdened with a multiplicity 

 of minor deities, while the Masai and 

 kindred races have practically no re- 

 ligion at all. 



Cannibalism lingers in the western cor- 

 ners of the Protectorate, while the na- 

 tives of other parts are importing tinned 

 apricots or are printing and publishing 

 in their own language summaries of their 

 past history. This is the country of the 

 okapi, the whale-headed stork, the chim- 

 panzee, and the five-horned giraffe, the 



rhinoceroses with the longest horns, and 

 the elephants with the biggest tusks. 



A GREAT BOOM IN EAST AFRICA 



Great changes are taking place day by 

 day in British East Africa, owing to the 

 completion of the Uganda railway, which 

 will prove to be, I think, one of the 

 mightiest factors yet introduced into Cen- 

 tral Africa for the transformation of a 

 land of complete barbarism to one at any 

 rate attaining to the civilization of settled 

 India. I have had the privilege of seeing 

 this country just in time — just before the 

 advent of the railway changed the Rift 

 Valley, the Nandi Plateau, the Masai 

 countries, from the condition at which 

 they were at the time of Joseph Thomson 

 (1882) to one which day by day becomes 

 increasingly different. 



On grassy wastes, where no human 

 being but a slinking Andorobo or a few 

 Masai warriors met the eye; where 

 grazed Grant's gazelle, with his magnifi- 

 cent horns, and the smaller but more 

 gaily colored Gazella thomsoni; where 

 hartebeests moved in thousands, zebras 

 in hundreds, ostriches in dozens, and 

 rhinoceroses in couples; where, in fact, 

 everything lay under the condition of 

 Britain some 200,000 years ago ; not only 

 do trains puff to and fro (the zebras and 

 antelopes are still there, accepting the 

 locomotives like a friend, since it drives 

 away the lions and ensures the respect of 

 the game laws), but alongside the rail- 

 ways are springing up uncounted hideous 

 habitations of corrugated iron and towns 

 of tents and straw huts. 



The solitude of the Rift Valley has 

 gone. Thousands of bearded Indians, 

 hundreds of Europeans and Eurasians, 

 negroes of every African type (from the 

 handsome Somali to the ugly Mudigo), 

 Arabs, and Persians trudge to and fro on 

 foot, ride donkeys, mules, and horses, 

 pack the carriages like herrings, set up 

 booths, and diverge far and wide a hun- 

 dred miles in each direction from the 

 railway line, trafficking with shy and as- 

 tonished natives, who had scarcely real- 

 ized the existence of a world outside 

 their own jungle, for the beef, mutton, 

 fowls, eggs, and vegetable foodstuffs 



