Beldishbrica ] WATERWAYS ; RAILWAYS 61 nearly all the export and import trade of the Protec torate . The lake flotilla consists of six steamers, of 700 to 1,200 tons displacement, five smaller steamers and tugs, and a number of lighters and small boats. For such vessels the lake is navigable over its whole area of 26,828 square miles, and the Uganda steamers can visit 17 ports, four of which lie within what was German East Africa. In 1913-14 the mileage run was 95,338, and the traffic handled amounted to 59,759 tons. In the East Africa Protectorate the only possible waterways are the Rivers Juba and Tana, which have both been navigated by light -draught steamers for a distance of 400 miles. Two small river steamers are engaged in trading on the Juba River, but the Tana presents obstacles and difficulties which have hitherto precluded any regular service.

(c) Railways The System in General. — The Uganda Railway has in the last two decades been the dominant material factor in the political and economic development of East Africa. In this brief time it has fully realized the aims and hopes of its promoters. The slave trade has been exterminated and thesafety of Uganda Chris tians ensured ; mechanical traction , with infinitely greater carrying capacity, has superseded human por terage over the main traderoutes ;British authority has been firmly and quietly established ; the country has been pacified and partly colonized, and is now assured of financial independence and economic prosperity. Incidentally the railway has conditioned almost the whole system of subsidiary communications , which by roads and paths , rivers and lake routes, posts and tele graphs , now spreads over most of Uganda and over the southern and more fertile portion of the East Africa Protectorate.

The term Uganda Railway is,in a sense, a misnomer ; for, although the traffic of Uganda passes over it, the line itself, with a length of 587 miles between its ter mini at Mombasa and the Victoria Nyanza, lies wholly [3918] F 2