126 
president’s ADDRESS — SECTION E. 
lias paralysed in most parts of the world trading operations and 
business transactions, and new scope should be won by geographic 
efforts, both for rural and mercantile industries. 
The paths of communication from the coast to Lake Victoria 
Nyauza lead, as is well known, over very elevated country up to 
heights of 8,000 feet, it beiug about half that altitude at the lake. 
As might be imagined, the climate in the upper regions is delightful, 
and the soil extensively fertile. Captain AV. H. Williams (in the 
volume 1803-1891 of the Royal Colonial Institute) remarks that 
wherever a military station is formed the aborigines flock round it for 
protection and settlement. Grassy pastures abound towards the lake, 
cn which herds of native cattle and also donkeys browse. Similar is 
the testimony of Mr. G. Mackenzie and other great authorities on 
tropical African geography. 
Lakes Victoria Nvanza and Tanganyika are only 160 miles apart, 
and this shows how commanding the mercantile communication line 
would be even to as far as the Congo source. Game should also be 
plentiful, affording skins as a merchandise not unwelcome even 
here in our colonies. As timber trees occur only scantily at 
and near the lake, new extensive homes for our quick-growing 
and hardwooded Eucalypts would widely be found, especially for the 
Queensland species, the seed trade in this way being sure to represent 
a good sum annually for a long time to come. Superior breeds of 
horses, cattle, and sheep will doubtless soon also he introduced from 
here to these equatorial highlands as an additional outlet of Australian 
pastoral industries. The traveller above quoted regards, with others, 
Uganda as destined for the centre of a vast population of colonists ; 
and Britain, largely through the East African Company, and therefore 
through commercial efforts, has there a permanent footing. Uganda 
is the upper key to the Nile waterways, and will eventually represent 
a river line of 3,000 miles, and it may influence ahm the traffic of 
Lake Tanganyika and others of the vast lacustrine basins. The road 
length surveyed from Mombasa — that being the most commanding 
port — to Lake Victoria Nyauza extends to 660 miles, rising to 8,500 
feet. Settlers who hail from Australia should soon bring us into 
ready contact with these new fields for industrial activity of high 
promise. Railways are sure to open up within the next decennia 
easy access to many of these wide tracts of country. It seems that 
to Dr. Baumann the enviable credit is due of having penetrated 
recently to the remotest sources of the Nile, bv tracing upwards the 
whole of the Kagera River as the principal feeder of Lake Victoria 
Nyanza. So far as the country at Lake Nvassa is concerned, the 
access is facilitated through the Shire River, as emanating from the 
lake. There, also, many more new emporiums must necessarily 
soon spring up, to which Australian attention has not yet been 
practically directed, although steamers are plying already in these 
waters also. Coalfields exist on the Upper Shire and in other 
regions of tropical Eastern Africa. On these tracts of country 
Merensky is one of the best and latest authorities. The most direct 
intercourse with the coast at a distance of 350 to 400 miles in a straight 
line would not be through British territory ; but it can be foreseen that 
trade connections will arise southward, placing the Nyassa regions in 
payable communication with the northern terminus of the South 
