Physical Features.–The protectorate, with a singularly diversified
surface of lofty plateaus, snow-capped mountains, vast swamps,
dense forests and regions of desolate aridity (valley of
Lake Rudolf), offers a remarkable variety of climates.
The Rudolf province lies low-an average altitude of not moreClimate.
than 2000 ft.—is extremely hot, and has a very poor rainfall.
In some of its districts no rain falls for two years at a time,
elsewhere scarcely as much as 10 in. per annum. The Eastern
province is abundantly watered near Victoria Nyanza and
around Mt Elgon and the noble Debasien mountain (about
50 in. to 100 in. annuall); elsewhere, in Karamojo and the
northern regions, the rainfall lessens to about 20 in. Busoga
and the western part of the Elgon district in this province have
a regular West African climate—hot, moist and not over-healthy.
These are the conditions of Buganda, a country with an annual
rainfall of from 60 to 80 in., a regular West African climate, and
severe and frequent thunderstorms. Much the same may be said
about the Western province, except for the cooling influence of the
Ruwenzori snow range, which pleasantly affects Toro and northern
Ankole. The rainfall on Ruwenzori and the central Semliki valley
is quite -100 in. per annum. Along the Ruwenzori range are
glaciers and snowfields nearly 15 m. in continuous length and some
5 m. in breadth. The Northern (formerly called the Nile) province
is perhaps the hottest part of Uganda. Like the districts
round Lake Rudolf, the average altitude (near the Nile) is not more
than 2000 ft., but the rainfall is more abundant than in the terrible
Rudolf region, being an average of 30 in. per annum.
The surface of the protectorate is diversified. Mount Elgon (q.v.) just outside the Eastern province is one of the leading physical features of the Uganda and East Africa protectorates. It consists of the vast crater—some 10 m. in diameter—of an extinct volcano, the rim of which rises in severalMountains, Lakes and Rivers. places to over 14,000 ft. Terraces and buttresses extend and ramify in all directions from the central crater, so that the giant volcano and its surrounding heights form a mountain country (notable for its innumerable cascades and dense forests) the size of Montenegro. The mass of Elgon can be seen from the north-east coast of Victoria Nyanza, from near the main Nile stream, from the heights overlooking Lake Rudolf and from the Kikuyu escarpment. The Eastern province consists of well-forested, undulating land (Busoga) on the coast of the lake, a vast extent of marsh round the lake-like backwaters of the Victoria Nile (Lakes Ibrahim or Kioga, Kwania, &c.) and a more stony, open, grain-growing country (Bukedi, Lobor, Karamojo). The Turkana country west of Lake Rudolf has been of late years terribly arid. A little vegetation is met with in the stream valleys, but most of the rivers marked on the map have ceased to show running water in their lower courses. A good deal of high land-rising in some peaks to near 10,000 ft.—is found in the eastern part of the Northern province, and these heights attract moisture and nourish permanent streams flowing Nilewards. But much of the lower ground is stony and poor in vegetation, while the lowland near the main Nile is exceedingly marsh.
The Ripon Falls, in the centre of the northern coast of the Victoria Nyanza, at the head of the exquisitely beautiful Napoleon Gulf, mark the exit of the fully born-'Nile from the great lake. The Victoria Nile tumbles over 50 m. of cascades and rapids (descending some 700 ft. in that distance) between Ripon Falls and Kakoge. Here it broadens into Lake Ibrahim (Kioga) (in reality a vast backwater of the Nile discovered by Colonel Chaillé Long in 1874), and continues navigable (save for sudd obstacles at times) right through Lake Ibrahim and thence northwards for 100 m. to Foweira and Karuma Falls. Between Karuma and Murchison Falls the Victoria Nile is unnavigable. At Fajao the navigation can 'be resumed into Lake Albert. The main Nile stream when it quits Lake Albert continues navigable as far north as Nimule (3° 40′ N.). Between Nimule and Fort Berkeley the river flows through a deep gorge and falls nearly 1000 ft. Navigability really only begins again at Gondokoro on the Sudan frontier, from which point steamers ply to Khartum (see Nile).
The geography of the Western province includes many interesting features, the in many ways peculiar Albert Nyanza (q.v.), the great snowy range of Ruwenzori (q.v.), the dense Semliki, Budonga, Mpang and Bunyaraguru forests, the salt lakes and salt springs of Unyoro and western Toro, the innumerable and singularly beautiful crater lakes of Toro and Ankole, the volcanic region of Mfumbiro (where active and extinct volcanoes rise in great cones to altitudes of from 11,000 to nearly 15,000 ft.), and the healthy plateaus of Ankole, which are in a lesser degree analogous in climate and position, and the Nandi plateau, on the east of Victoria Nyanza. Ruwenzori is a snowy range, and not a single mountain. Its greatest altitude—the Duke of the Abruzzi's Mt Stanley (Margherita Peak)—is 16,816 ft., and therefore the third highest point on the African continent. The Uganda Protectorate is a land of great lakes, and includes partially or wholly the water areas of Victoria Nyanza (about 2,000 sq. m.), Lake Rudolf (about 3500 sq. m.), Lake Ibrahim-Igioga-Kwania (800 sq. m.), Albert Nyanza (2700 sq. m.), and Lakes Albert Edward and Dweru[1] (1500 sq. m.), besides the small crater lakes of Toro and Ankole (singularly beautiful), the lake-swamps Salisbury and Kirkpatrick in the Eastern province, Lakes Wamala in Buganda, and Kachera in Ankole. The water of Lake Victoria is per ectly fresh. This is the case with all the other lakes except Rudolf, Albert Nyanza and Albert Edward, in which the water ranges from salt to slightly brackish.
Geology.—Wide tracts remain geologically unexplored. Archean rocks-gneiss, schist and granite-cover large areas through which the Nile cuts its way in alternate narrow gorges and open reaches. In Ankole and Koki rocks consisting of granular quartzite, schistose sandstone, red and brown sandstone, and shales with cleaved killas rest on the Archean platform and possibly represent the Lower Witwatersrand beds of the Transvaal. No traces of the Karroo formation have been detected. Volcanic rocks occur in Usoga and elsewhere. The Nile at the Ripon. Falls leaps over a basalt dike. The rocks on the verge of the Kisumu province of East Africa are mainly volcanic (basalt, tuff, lava, kenyte). West of the volcanic region, nearer to Lake Victoria and the Eastern province, ironstone, granite, gneiss and schistose formations predominate, with phonolite in places.
Iron ore (haematite) is abundant. In the Eastern province the rocks are mainly quartz, gneiss and granite, with sandstone in Busoga, basalt round Mt Elgon, slate (Busoga) and ironstone (Busoga and Bukedi). In the Rudolf province there are the basalt, lava, tuff and kenyte of the volcanic Rift valley, overlying a formation of granite, gneiss and quartz. Gold-in some cases alluvial—is found in the mountainous country to the north-west of Lake Rudolf. Gneiss, granite and quartz-the decomposed granite giving the red “African” clay -are the leading features in the formations of the Northern province, of Buganda, and of the Western province, with some sandstone in the littoral districts of Buganda and in Ankole, and eruptive rocks and lava in south-western Ankole and on the eastern flanks of Ruwenzori. There are indications of copper in Busoga, of gold in Unyoro. Iron is found nearly everywhere. Graphite is present in Buganda and Unyoro.
Flora.—The vegetation is luxuriant except in the Rudolf region, which has the sparse flora of Somaliland. In the Western province, Busoga and the Elgon district the flora is very West African in character. The swampy regions of the Nile and of the Eastern province are characterized by an extravagant growth of papyrus and other rushes, of reeds and coarse grass. There are luxuriant tropical forests in the coast region of Buganda, in Busoga, west Elgon, western Unyoro, eastern Toro, the central Semliki valley and north-west Ankole. The upper' regions of Mt Elgon, Mt Debasien and Mt Agoro are clothed with forests of conifers—juniper and yew—and witch-hazels (Trichocladus). There are also giant yew-trees (Podocarpus) on the flanks of Ruwenzoriand the Mfumbiro volcanoes between 7000 and 9000 ft., but no junipers. The alpine vegetation on all these lofty mountains is of a mixed Cape and Abyssinian character-witch-hazels, senecios, lobelias, kniphofias, everlasting flowers, tree heaths and hypericums. The really tropical vegetation of Buganda is' nearly identical with that of West Africa, but there is no oil-palm.
Fauna.—The fauna also has many West African affinities in the hot, forested regions. In the Kisumu province of East Africa even, there are several West African mammals such as the broad-horned tragelaph and the forest pig. These are also found in part of the Semliki forests. As a rule, however, the fauna of the Upper Semliki valley, of parts of Ankole, Buganda and Unyoro, of the Northern, Rudolf and Eastern provinces, is of that “East African,” “Ethiopic” character which is specially the feature of South and East Africa and of the Sudan right across from Abyssinia to the river Senegal. Among notable mammals the chimpanzee is found in Unyoro, Toro and north-west Ankole, and has only recently become extinct in Buganda; the okapi inhabits the Semliki forests on the Congo frontier; the giraffe (the male sometimes developing five horn cores) is common in the Northern, Eastern and Rudolf' provinces; there are three types of buffalo-the Cape, the Congo and the Abyssinian; two species of zebra (one of them Grévy’s), the African wild ass, the square-li ped (“white”) and pointed-lipped (“black”) rhinoceroses, the elephant, hippopotamus, water tragelaph (“ Speke's antelope ”), Cape ant-bear, aard-wolf (Proteles), hunting-dog, and nearly every genus and most of the species of African antelopes. The birds are more West African than the mammals, and include the grey parrot, all the genera of the splendidly-coloured turacoes, the unique “whale-headed stork,” and the ostrich.
Inhabitants.—The inhabitants in 1909, numbered about 3,500,000 natives, 3000 British Indians and Arabs, and 507 Europeans (British, French, Germans, Italians and Maltese). Of these last 119 were women. The races indigenous to the protectorate are mainly of the Negro species (with slight Caucasian intermixture), and may be divided into the following categories: (1) Pigmy-prognathous (so-called “Congo” pigmies of Semliki forest, , of Kiagwe in Buganda, and of the western
- ↑ In 1909 Albert Edward Nyanza was renamed by British geographers (with the consent of Edward VII) Lake Edward, and Lake Dweru Lake George, in honour of George V.
