actually settling in considerable numbers in the neighbouring East Africa Protectorate will probably prove of great importance for the future of the country and determine the direction of its development. If it is ever decided to construct the Cape to Cairo Railway, Uganda will be able to supply plentiful and intelligent native labour, such as is rarely found in Africa.
To the west, Uganda borders on the Congo Free State, and these frontier lands still merit the titles of darkest and unknown Africa, The shortest route to the eastern side of the Congo is undoubtedly by the Uganda Railway, and though the Belgian authorities have naturally a preference for roads which open up their own territory, this route is beginning to be used.
Politically the East Africa Protectorate is less important than Uganda—that is to say, it does not contain many points which are of strategic value or affect the neighbouring lands. But it offers a series of excellent harbours along the coast, and since ships could be supplied with practically unlimited quantities of meat and European vegetables, it might be valuable as a provisioning station in time of war. Mombasa, with its adjacent land-locked harbours, is capable of accommodating the largest fleets, and is a rapidly increasing port, somewhat handicapped at present of its defective water-supply. This defect, however, will probably soon be remedied by the construction of waterworks, bringing water from a neighbouring stream at a cost of about £100,000.
It is, however, not so much of the political importance of the East Africa Protectorate that I would speak as of its commercial and economic possibilities. Uganda is a black man's country; East Africa is fitted to be a white man's country, and is rapidly becoming one. As explained, this Protectorate rises gradually from the sea into a plateau varying from 5,000 to 10,000 feet in height, excluding peaks which attain an altitude of nearly 19,000 feet. This plateau is cleft down the middle by a depression known as the Great Rift
