Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/127

 view of the Nundu range. The caravans, which travel slowly, scarcely making more than eight or nine miles a day, take two whole months to perform the journey. The missionaries of Islam, more fortunate tlian those labouring in U-Ganda, claim Kavirondo as their conquest; at least the greater part of the people have submitted to the rite of circumcision. North of U-Ganda most of the peninsular district lying between the Albert Nyanza and the Somerset Nile belongs to the Wa-Nyoro people. Formerly all the country stretching between the two Nilotic lakes constituted the vast kingdom of Kitwara, governed by a dynasty of "Wa-Huma conquerors. This empire has been divided into many states, of which U-Ganda is the most powerful ; but the sovereign of U-Nyoro would appear still to enjoy a sort of virtual sovereignty over his neighbours, and always bears officially the title of King of Kitwara. Nevertheless U-Nyoro cannot be compared to U-Ganda, either in the extent of its cultivated territory, in the number of its people, or in political amity. In spite of the natural frontier, indicated by the banks of the Nile and the lake, its limits are rendered imcertain by the incursions of hostile tribes. Uninhabited borderlands separate U-Nyoro from U-Ganda; but here lies a region of great commercial importance, belonging at once to two kingdoms as a place of transition, which caravans can traverse only under escort, usually choosing the night for their march. This debatable region is the zone of land comprised between the marshes of Ergvgu and the abrupt bend of the Nile at M'ruli. The Wa-Ganda are compelled to force their way through it when proceeding from Rubaga to Sudan, and the Wa-Nyoro of the west have no other way by which to visit their villages situated to the west of the Nile. U-Nyoro is in a continual state of warfare, dividing it into petty states, which increase or diminish in extent according to the vicissitudes of the battlefield. It is the custom on the death of the sovereign for his nearest relations to dispute the succession; the corpse is not buried till after the victorj' of one of the competitors. The latter, however, often hastens to celebrate his triumph prematurely, in which case the war continues for generations between brothers and cousins. At present U-Nyoro is divided between hostile kingdoms; besides which Egj-ptian garrisons, cut off from the centre of administration at Khartum, still occupy the line of the Nile between the bend of Foweira and Lake Albert Nyonza. Numerous tribes have also retained their independence, especially in the high south-western district between the two great lakes.

U-Nyoro presents on the whole the aspect of a plateau with a north-easterly slope parallel to Lake Albert Nyanza. It enjoys a copious rainfall, and many depressions in the surface are occupied with swamps rendered dangerous to the wayfarer by the holes caused by the heavy tramp of elephants. The lacustrine basins are also strewn with gneiss and granite boulders, whose presence in these alluvial tracts seems inexplicable. Except in the vicinity of the Nile, vegetation appears to be on the whole less exuberant than in U-Ganda. Leguminous plants,